Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace: The British Ship Revolution and Japanese Industrialization (St. Antony's)

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Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace The British Ship Revolution and Japanese Industrialization

Miwao Matsumoto

St Antony’s Series General Editor: Jan Zielonka (2004–), Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford Recent titles include: Victoria D. Alexander and Marilyn Rueschemeyer ART AND THE STATE The Visual Arts in Comparative Perspective Thomas Boghardt SPIES OF THE KAISER German Covert Operations in Great Britain during the First World War Era Ulf Schmidt JUSTICE AT NUREMBERG Leo Alexander and the Nazi Doctors’ Trial Steve Tsang (editor) PEACE AND SECURITY ACROSS THE TAIWAN STRAIT C. W. Braddick JAPAN AND THE SINO–SOVIET ALLIANCE, 1950–1964 In the Shadow of the Monolith Isao Miyaoka LEGITIMACY IN INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY Japan’s Reaction to Global Wildlife Preservation Neil J. Melvin SOVIET POWER AND THE COUNTRYSIDE Policy Innovation and Institutional Decay Julie M. Newton RUSSIA, FRANCE AND THE IDEA OF EUROPE Juhana Aunesluoma BRITAIN, SWEDEN AND THE COLD WAR, 1945–54 Understanding Neutrality George Pagoulatos GREECE’S NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY State, Finance and Growth from Postwar to EMU Tiffany A. Troxel PARLIAMENTARY POWER IN RUSSIA, 1994–2001 A New Era Elvira María Restrepo COLOMBIAN CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN CRISIS Fear and Distrust Ilaria Favretto THE LONG SEARCH FOR A THIRD WAY The British Labour Party and the Italian Left Since 1945

Lawrence Tal POLITICS, THE MILITARY, AND NATIONAL SECURITY IN JORDAN, 1955–1967 Louise Haagh and Camilla Helgø (editors) SOCIAL POLICY REFORM AND MARKET GOVERNANCE IN LATIN AMERICA Gayil Talshir THE POLITICAL IDEOLOGY OF GREEN PARTIES From the Politics of Nature to Redefining the Nature of Politics E. K. Dosmukhamedov FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN KAZAKHSTAN Politico-Legal Aspects of Post-Communist Transition Felix Patrikeeff RUSSIAN POLITICS IN EXILE The Northeast Asian Balance of Power, 1924–1931 He Ping CHINA’S SEARCH FOR MODERNITY Cultural Discourse in the Late 20th Century Mariana Llanos PRIVATIZATION AND DEMOCRACY IN ARGENTINA An Analysis of President–Congress Relations Michael Addison VIOLENT POLITICS Strategies of Internal Conflict Geoffrey Wiseman CONCEPTS OF NON-PROVOCATIVE DEFENCE Ideas and Practices in International Security Pilar Ortuño Anaya EUROPEAN SOCIALISTS AND SPAIN The Transition to Democracy, 1959–77 Miwao Matsumoto TECHNOLOGY GATEKEEPERS FOR WAR AND PEACE The British Ship Revolution and Japanese Industrialization

St Antony’s Series Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–71109–2 (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace The British Ship Revolution and Japanese Industrialization

Miwao Matsumoto University of Tokyo

in association with St Antony’s College, Oxford

© Miwao Matsumoto 2006 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–1–4039–3687–5 ISBN-10: 1–4039–3687–0 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Matsumoto, Miwao Technology gatekeepers for war and peace : the British ship revolution and Japanese industrialization / Miwao Matsumoto. p. cm. – (St. Antony’s series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–3687–0 (cloth) 1. Naval architecture—Great Britain—History—19th century. 2. Naval architecture—Great Britain—History—20th century. 3. Technology transfer— Great Britain. 4. Technology transfer—Japan. 5. Warships—Great Britain— Design and construction. 6. Warships—Japan—Design and construction. 7. Industrialization—Japan. I. Title. II. St. Antony’s series (Palgrave Macmillan (Firm)) VM57.M367 2005 338.4⬘762381⬘095209041—dc22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

2005043363

Contents List of Figures and Tables

viii

Preface

xi

Acknowledgements

xiii

List of Abbreviations

1

xv

Introduction: Problems and Approaches The scientific and technological revolution at the turn of the century The significance of the ship revolution General problems and models A changing Japan in a changing world The role of the Ministry of Engineering and the Engineering College in the formation of infrastructure and human resources Emerging professionalization: domestic professional societies A new gatekeeper model of science and technology transfer Dimensions of ‘gatekeepers’ A new composite model of industrialization Dimensions of ‘composite’ The composition of the book

2 The Technology Gatekeepers: The Role of the Navy and Mitsubishi in the Ship Revolution The industrialization of Japan, the transfer of science and technology, and technology gatekeepers How large was the science and technology gap? The role of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard The role of the Imperial Japanese Navy Conclusion

3 Technology Gatekeepers Combine: The Emergence of the Japanese Military-Industrial-University Complex The course of the transfer of marine steam turbine technology to Japan The Imperial Japanese Navy as a technology gatekeeper: a dual role v

1 2 5 6 7 9 12 16 18 19 20 23

26 27 28 32 41 47

50 52 54

vi

Contents

The rationality of technology gatekeepers The role of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Entrepreneurial risk-taking of technology gatekeepers How did technology gatekeepers combine? The emergence of the Japanese military-industrial-university complex Conclusion

74 78

4 ‘Spin-on’ and Latecomers’ Advantages Reconsidered: British Development and Japanese Transfer in Social Context

81

The social impact of the Turbinia From professionalization to R&D: C. A. Parsons and ‘spin-on’ in the development of the marine steam turbine The role of the Royal Navy: a de facto ‘spin-off’ story Development in the laissez-faire British state Science and technical practice in marine turbine technology The Japanese social context of ‘spin-on’ in transferring the scientific aspect of the marine turbine Industrial education within the company Invention within the organization The emergence of the Mitsubishi type and the process of de facto ‘spin-off’ Conclusion

5 ‘Spin-off’ in the Nationalization of R&D: The Recasting of the British System in an Industrializing Japan

6

61 63 68

83 87 94 99 101 102 106 108 111 115

118

The British ‘spin-off’ process in the setting up of the National Physical Laboratory’s experimental tank The Japanese ‘spin-off’ process in the setting up of the National Experimental Tank The social background underlying public R&D organizations: the INA and the Shipbuilding Association The implications of the nationalization of R&D in Britain and Japan Patterns of institutionalization Conclusion

136 140 142

Conclusion: Beyond Success or Failure

145

The structure and function of the ship revolution The wartime mobilization of science and technology and the military-industrial-university complex Success or failure?

147

119 124 128

151 159

Contents vii

The development of the Kanpon turbine and its pitfalls Secrecy about the failure The Rinkicho failure and the outbreak of war with the US and Britain: how did Japan deal with the problem? Conclusion: beyond success or failure

160 163 167 172

Appendix

176

Notes

180

Select Bibliography

221

Name Index

237

Subject Index

242

List of Figures and Tables Figures 1.1 Total number of foreign employees, by Japanese government department, in the Meiji period, 1876–98 10 1.2 Change over time in the number of regular members of the Electrical Engineering Society and the Mechanical Engineering Society in Japan 16 1.3 The new gatekeeper model of science and technology transfer 18 1.4 Previous models of science and technology transfer 18 2.1 First test records of the experimental tank in Japan 36 3.1 Numbers of workers in Japanese shipbuilding companies in 1907 58 3.2 Total HP of prime movers used in production in Japanese shipbuilding companies in 1907 58 3.3 Naval vessel construction by Japanese shipbuilding companies, 1884–1914 59 3.4 A plane view of the first Kanpon type marine steam turbine 60 3.5 The marine steam turbines of the Shunyomaru under construction at Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard 67 3.6 Water consumption per hour of the turbine ship and steamers 70 3.7 Coal consumption per hour of the turbine ship and steamers 71 4.1 The Turbinia at Spithead 83 4.2 Actual production of Parsons’ marine steam turbine, 1894–1910 85 4.3 Actual production of Parsons’ marine steam turbine by ordering agent, 1894–1910 86 4.4 Parsons’ Patent No. 394 on the marine steam turbine 88 4.5 Cavitation experiment by C. A. Parsons 93 4.6 Resistance curve given to C. A. Parsons by R. E. Froude 98 5.1 Membership of the INA in Britain 133 5.2 Membership of the Shipbuilding Association in Japan 134 Tables 1.1 Main professional societies of science and technology established in Japan, 1875–1914 1.2 Main professional societies for engineering established in Britain, 1850–1900 2.1 Dates of model ship experiments and full-scale ship construction at Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, 1908–12 2.2 The composition of the Experimental Tank Unit, Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard viii

13 15 38 40

List of Figures and Tables ix

2.3 Report from personnel stationed overseas, by the Chief Naval Architect, Yoichi Inagawa, ‘On the Experimental Tank’ 2.4 Division between imports and domestic production 2.5 Comparison table for the dimensions of the experimental tanks 3.1 A comparison of the performance of imported and domestically produced marine steam turbines for merchant ships 3.2 A comparison of the performance of imported and domestically produced marine steam turbines for warships 3.3 A comparison of the specifications of the Curtis and Parsons marine steam turbines 3.4 The main intermediate types of marine steam turbine produced in Japan until the Kanpon type was established 3.5 A comparison of the specifications of the Tangomaru and the Tenyomaru 3.6 The specifications of the imported and domestically produced marine steam turbines for merchant ships 3.7 Professional careers of graduates from the Shipbuilding Department of the Imperial University of Tokyo, 1883–1903 4.1 Number of C. A. Parsons’ papers, by professional society, 1887–1929 4.2 The organization of the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company in 1898 4.3 Increase in the number of employees by unit at the Materials Testing Laboratory, Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard 4.4 Characteristics of foreign and domestic metals for turbine blades 4.5 Main patents and inventions in Mitsubishi after the company regulation on inventions and patents 4.6 The organization of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, as set out in 1908 5.1 Contributors to the NPL tank running costs 5.2 The organizational structure of the British National Experimental Tank established at the NPL in 1911 5.3 The organizational structure of the Japanese National Experimental Tank as established by the Ministry of Communications in 1930 5.4 Stipulation of the fees for tests carried out by the Mejiro tank for private companies 5.5 Number of ship model tests for private firms at the NPL 5.6 The employee structure of the National Experimental Tank at the NPL on its establishment in 1911

42 43 43

53 53 56 61 65 68 75 90 94 104 105 109 110 123 123

128 137 138 141

x

List of Figures and Tables

6.1 The original budget plan for the JSPS in 1932 6.2 The members of the board of directors of the JSPS in 1937 6.3 Division of duties of the Board of Technology 6.4 Duties of research sections of the Board of Technology 6.5 A synopsis of geared turbine failures of naval vessels from 1918 6.6 References to the Rinkicho failure 6.7 Members of the Special Examination Committee, by section 6.8 Turbine failures on naval vessels classified by location, 1918–44

154 155 157 158 161 165 168 169

Preface This is a book about the scientific and technological revolution in shipbuilding, which had a great impact on both the military and the industrial/commercial world. Its purpose is to analyse the role played by ‘technology gatekeepers’ in the light of a new ‘composite model’ of industrialization, which reveals more profound and subtler sociological implications than ‘success or failure’ type accounts of industrialization usually suggest. The book particularly focuses on the relationship between the scientific and technological revolution and the structure and function of ‘technology gatekeepers’, scrutinizing the process of the transfer of marine science and technology from Britain to Japan at the turn of the twentieth century. The social framework of present-day science and technology is to a considerable extent a product of at least two epoch-making phases in the social history of science and technology since the mid-nineteenth century. One is the professionalization of science and technology starting about the second half of the nineteenth century. The other is its wartime mobilization starting from around the time of the First World War. Until now the social process leading from the one to the other has received little serious treatment so that the basic question of how the social framework of present-day science and technology has been brought about has yet to be systematically posed and definitely answered. Instead, centre stage has been held by diffuse episodic histories based on a schematic view of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries as the periods of professionalization and the wartime mobilization of science and technology respectively. This seems to have made it extremely difficult to see beyond the abundant stereotypes and get reliable insights into the role of science and technology during industrialization – in Japan for example – within a proper comparative perspective. This book challenges this situation and aims at elucidating the dynamics of the social process leading from the professionalization to the wartime mobilization of science and technology, by a detailed analysis of the mechanisms operating in the transfer of marine science and technology from Britain to Japan at the turn of the twentieth century, and of the transfer structure. The author has avoided detailed but monotonous chronologies of events put into a ready-made descriptive framework, and instead pays deliberate attention to the framework of description and analysis, and proposes his own models of explanation. The models proposed are not the products of attractive but careless generalization, but are

xi

xii Preface

validated by a thorough study of primary source materials. The results of this new analysis are important for the sociological reconsideration of industrialization within the perspective of the social history of science and technology. MIWAO MATSUMOTO

Acknowledgements My stay in Oxford as a senior associate member of St Antony’s College for 1998–99 gave me a chance to work on the manuscript of this book. I wish to thank first people in Oxford who provided me with an ideal environment for devoting myself to the preparation of the manuscript. Professor J. A. A. Stockwin gave me invaluable advice on how to get my research published in book form. Professor Robert Fox gave me an opportunity to present some of the ideas of Chapter 4 at his seminar, ‘Science and the New Century: Britain, France, and Germany c.1900’, where I was able to obtain useful comments from the participants, including the late Professor John Ziman of the University of Bristol. And I wish to thank Professor Simon Schaffer of the University of Cambridge for kindly giving me a source of information on traditional customs in the dockyards of the Royal Navy. I thank Professor Bruce Sinclair of the Dibner Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who gave me valuable comments on an earlier version of Chapter 2 and encouraged me to develop it further. I owe the refinement of some points in Chapter 3 to Dr John Staudenmeir and an anonymous referee of Technology and Culture who delicately pointed out that my argument in my original article resembled an ‘unpolished diamond’. I should like to thank Professors Joanna Innes, David Edgerton, Drs Ben Marsden, Graeme Gooday, Professors Shigeru Nakayama, Tetsuro Nakaoka, Hoshimi Uchida, Tatsuya Kobayashi, Chikayoshi Kamatani, Munesuke Mita, Yoichiro Murakami, Yasunori Baba, Makoto Ohno and Shunzo Matsuzuka for their helpful comments on, and discussions about, the key ideas of this book. Thanks are due to Mr Takashi Matsumoto for his patient support in surveying primary source materials kept at the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard archives at the time when the archives were not open to researchers. I would also like to thank the members of the Research Committee on the Shibuya documents who have been examining the documents since their discovery in 1991 for their expert guidance in selecting relevant materials from the voluminous archives. Particular thanks are due to Dr Seikan Ishigai, ex-president of the Marine Engineering Society of Japan, for his technical advice in reading blueprints and primary data. I should like to express my gratitude to the late Dr Yasuo Takeda, former executive director of Kawasaki Heavy Industry, for his helpful discussion about several points in Chapter 6. And Mr Lawrence Colvin, as what he calls a ‘sentence engineer’, helped improve my English a great deal. I should like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to two of my tutors, the late Toyo Ichikawa, and the late Shuichi Baba, who both suddenly died in the most productive period of their academic careers, for their xiii

xiv Acknowledgements

generous tutorials and discipline that enabled me to devote myself to this kind of work in the field of sociology. I have made every effort to trace copyright holders and to get copyright clearance for the reproduction of previously published material. I should like to invite any copyright holder who may have been inadvertently overlooked to contact me and/or the publisher. Some of my articles have formed the basis of some sections of this book. They are as follows: ‘The Imperial Japanese Navy’s connection with a marine steam turbine transfer from the West: a sociological model of the early 20th century’, Historia Scientiarum, vol. 6, no. 3 (1997), pp. 209–27; ‘Le jeu des roles autour d’une turbine à vapeur’, Les Cahiers de Science & Vie, no. 41 (Octobre, 1997), pp. 80–90; ‘Reconsidering Japanese industrialization’, Technology and Culture, vol. 40, no. 1 (1999), pp. 74–97; ‘A hidden pitfall in the path of prewar Japanese military technology’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, vol. 71, no. 2 (2000), pp. 305–25; ‘An unknown naval accident and the development trajectory of the Kanpon type turbine in prewar Japan’, in Emmanuel Poulle and Robert Halleux (eds.) Collection of Studies from the International Academy of the History of Science (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), vol. 7, pp. 317–26. It would have been impossible for me to carry out primary material collection without cooperation from the following organizations: Radcliffe Science Library, Oxford; Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives; University of Tokyo Archives; Royal Scottish Museum; Tyne and Wear Archives Service; NEI Parsons, Ltd; Bodleian Japanese Library, Oxford; Bodleian Library, Oxford; Modern History Faculty Library, Oxford; Technical Research Institute Library of the Defense Academy of Japan; National Record Office of Japan; Shibuya Documents Archives; The Science Museum of London; University of Glasgow Archives. Thanks are due to them. MIWAO MATSUMOTO

List of Abbreviations EBHME INA JSPS NPL RCMESJ TINA TRS

Editorial Board for the History of Marine Engineering in Japan Institution of Naval Architects The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science National Physical Laboratory The Research Committee of the Marine Engineering Society of Japan Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects Temporary Research Section, The Minister of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Secretariat

xv

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1 Introduction: Problems and Approaches

In both peacetime and wartime the scientific and technological revolution in shipbuilding was important in the creation of the infrastructure of industrial society and its development. Technologically, ships seem today to have reached saturation point and are of interest only to a small circle of historians of science and technology specializing in shipbuilding. In contrast, interest in industrialization and in particular the later phase of industrialization from the end of the nineteenth century onwards is widespread among sociologists, historians of science and technology, economic historians, political scientists and scholars in many other fields. This book examines the scientific and technological revolution in shipbuilding (abbreviated to the ship revolution hereafter) at the time when the later phase of industrialization, and particularly Japan’s heavy industrialization in the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, was starting. The two phenomena were profoundly related in the period this book mainly treats – from the 1880s to the 1930s. Within that period, the book focuses on the turn of the twentieth century, and the book’s points have as their general background the global competition for markets and resources that was one of the contributory causes of the First World War. The relations between the ship revolution and industrialization provide a significant prototype for the interaction of science and technology with industrial society since then. And examination of the ship revolution within the context of a marine technology transfer from Britain to Japan will enable us to get a fresh, previously unexplored perspective on the new stage of industrialization that started around that time. What is the basis for this assertion? This chapter gives a general outline of the answer by making clear the significance of the ship revolution in industrial societies and explaining the concept of ‘technology gatekeepers’, and providing basic frameworks and facts to help the reader understand the concept.

1

2

Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace

The scientific and technological revolution at the turn of the century In contrast to the classical industrial society of the first half of the nineteenth century, towards the end of the nineteenth century societies experienced dramatic social changes following the Industrial Revolution.1 Heavy industry in particular, as a result of the rationalization of the production process due to electrification, the trust system, and so on, effected changes in all subsectors of society, leading many to separate this period from others by calling it the ‘Second Industrial Revolution’.2 The role of science always comes into the discussion because the forerunners of R&D systems gradually began to appear in this period, with newly obtained scientific knowledge being used for industrial products or processes. At this moment, science originating in natural philosophy in the seventeenth century and technology originating from crafts in the prehistoric period were about to be integrated for the first time into a professionalized science and technology such as we know today. This entailed two drastic changes. First, practical technical knowledge accumulated over millennia was incorporated into the analytical framework that developed in the eighteenth century, and came to be systematically expressed and handled within it (for example, the emergence of analytical dynamics). Second, this systematically expressed technical knowledge came to be produced, reproduced, and exclusively possessed by various professional science and technology groups through the emergence of advanced schools, specialized laboratories, professional societies, and so forth to foster and qualify relevant expertise. The first change involved a revolution in intellectual frameworks, through which science and technology came closer and became integrated into a professionalized science and technology. The second was a revolution in social frameworks, through which this professionalized science and technology was assimilated, supported and utilized by industrial society. The scientific and technological revolution here indicates the entire process of these twin revolutions. What is noteworthy is that after this revolution a permanent system of constant exchange of information, materials, human resources and money between science, technology and industrial society evolved. Various institutional channels control the timing and the quantity of flow in such an exchange: professional societies in science and technology, science and technology chairs in universities, R&D organizations run by business enterprises, the administration system for science and technology policy implementation, new specialized jobs in production processes, and others. With the advent of this permanent system, the mode of knowledge production gradually changed. Up to then an independent inventor would still seek information, materials, human resources and money from society as occasion demanded. Now, however, society began to invest these in a steady manner in projects organized by research groups in expectation of something useful

Introduction: Problems and Approaches 3

emerging, and the impact of knowledge on society also changed from a sporadic and unexpected influence to an organized and successive one, having in turn complex direct and indirect connections with the investment in the next generation of projects. Thus, science, technology and society began to interact dynamically with each other through the various controlling channels mentioned above. The fields of chemistry and electricity are examples of changes of this kind. In fact, the history of R&D organization (usually in a business) for the development of such inventions as organic synthetic dyes, electric light or the vacuum tube, has provided a popular topic for historians of science,3 since it exemplifies the emergence at the turn of the century of typical institutional changes in the modes of knowledge production and in the impact of that knowledge on society. By contrast, few sociological works have made a detailed analysis of the process of this scientific and technological revolution. A detailed exploration of the complex process, going beyond stereotypical generalizations such as that present-day social change is a product of the advance of science and technology since the industrial revolution, has yet to appear. Essentially the situation is the same, whether we look at continuous industrialization models, discontinuous development stage models, or revised versions of either.4 This means that the way in which science and technology has been connected with social change in the sociological analyses of industrial society has tended to be unrealistic and indeterminate. The reason is that an exact understanding of the dynamic and complex interaction between science, technology and industrial society during and after the scientific and technological revolution has been lacking, despite the claimed importance of that interaction for the transformation of industrial society. Accordingly, detailed case studies of the interaction at the turn of the century will also enable us to suggest not a few general implications for reconsideration of social changes in industrial society. This book focuses on two particular contemporary science and technology transfers from Britain to Japan within a comparative perspective. It will also refer to the 1870s (in Chapter 2) and the wartime mobilization period during the Second World War (in Chapter 6) to get a broader but relevant perspective for properly understanding the wider significance of the transfer. Germany and the United States have provided the most popular case materials for understanding the drastic social changes brought about by the scientific and technological revolution. For instance, the study of German and American R&D organizations at the turn of the century has made historians aware of the institutional dimensions of such social changes as the advent of the new process-management system corresponding to the continuous flow of materials, the changes in industrial location that resulted from the transmission and distribution of electric power, and so forth. The rich case histories of R&D organizations at Farbenfabriken Bayer AG,

4


Siemens & Halske AG, Westinghouse Electric Company and General Electric Company during periods of drastic institutional change have focused on new industrially useful products which were eventually made possible by newly obtained scientific knowledge.5 These are regarded as epoch-making events since ‘a series of major advances [in science] opened new areas of investment.’6 Britain, by contrast, has been regarded as an advanced country in the previous period, facing the prospect of being overtaken by new industrial societies like Germany and the US at the turn of the century. And Japan has been regarded as a latecomer, at the time still on the way to becoming one of the new industrial societies. Both have tended to be seen as away from the leading edge of the scientific and technological revolution. It is true that that revolution was in progress then and ultimately went on to shape the subsequent interaction between science, technology and industrial society. However, such one-dimensional criteria as whether or not the country concerned was at the leading edge of advance in a specific period are not necessarily profitable as a means of judging the importance of case materials. The state of Britain and of Japan at the time enables us to obtain far more profound sociological insights than could be expected from study employing such criteria.7 Britain as an advanced country of the previous period provides a typical locus where the scientific and technological revolution followed a zigzag course due to unavoidable conflicts, struggles and possibly negotiations and compromises between a long-standing social system of the previous period and newly emerging social needs. Britain, among other countries, gave rise to amateur scientists through the ‘scientific revolution’ in the seventeenth century and amateur engineers through the ‘industrial revolution’ in the eighteenth century. Due to the strong persistence of this tradition, the professionally trained corps of scientists and engineers that was coming into being at the turn of the century found themselves at times unavoidably in conflict with the deep-rooted system of amateur scientists and engineers in British society.8 Japan as a latecomer provides an opposite type of locus, where the scientific and technological revolution developed without such internal resistance because the country had no previous history as an industrial society. Thus Britain and Japan are not simply cases for comparative area studies. What makes them significant for the aim of this book is that they provide a pair of opposite poles in the West and in the East, which enable us to understand systematically a wide variety of area-dependent ways in which the scientific and technological revolution and industrial society interact. The significance of this book’s approach to the scientific and technological revolution, focusing on particular instances of science and technology transfer from Britain to Japan, is that by shedding new light on the relatively smooth development of the revolution in Japan compared with that in contemporary Britain an important key is obtained to understanding a prototypical


interaction between science, technology and industrial society and significant clues may be found as to the nature of such interactions in general.9

The significance of the ship revolution What is the reason for an examination of the ship revolution? We certainly cannot deny the role of advances in the fields of chemistry and electricity in the development of a new kind of R&D organization and providing an R&D model for other fields as mentioned above. But, if we look at science and technology within a more specific social context, the picture changes. In particular, we must avoid simple-mindedly equating the advance in the science and technology with social changes in industrial society, because advances in the fields of science and technology do not automatically mean social change. An intermediary process is required. An important example is the fact that the industries that led heavy industrialization both in Britain and in Japan at the turn of the century were not the chemical or electrical industries but rather the shipbuilding, iron/ steel-making and machine industries. These have usually been supposed to belong to the previous stage in the history of technology. However, contemporary population growth and the expansion of the global market made the need for efficient and reliable means of intercontinental transportation much more pressing than before, and the development of ships, including escort ships, provided the only means to fulfil that need. Particularly in Japan, the shipbuilding industry was expected to have the most ‘promising future’, because the country was obliged to rely upon sea transportation to meet the demands of commerce and national defence due to its geographical location.10 Britain was in the same situation. It is well known that ‘no shipbuilding country owes more to Great Britain than Japan’.11 In fact, the British, the ‘naval architects of the world’,12 had the lead in the science and technology of ships up to the beginning of the twentieth century. Naval architecture and marine engineering provide innumerable examples: the introduction of a longitudinal system in 1862, the trial manufacture of a contrapropeller in 1864, the utilization of a balanced rudder originating in 1891, to mention only a few. And the first industrial census of Britain in 1907 had already a separate category for the production of marine steam turbines and turbines for generators within the contemporary machinery industry.13 Shipbuilding (including marine engineering), rather than the chemical and electrical industries, was thus the industry that provided a common model for the scientific and technological revolution in both Japan and Britain at the time. In particular, the marine steam turbine and the experimental tank represent the revolution that the times demanded. There are two reasons for this. First, both were critical in the construction of large-scale vessels capable of high speed. Such vessels were the subject of a naval arms race, which was itself part of a struggle for global hegemony at the time. Second, both were

6


made possible by the development of thermodynamics and hydrodynamics, which were then emerging as professional scientific disciplines. In short, the marine steam turbine and the experimental tank were typical military/ commercial technologies linking science (thermodynamics and hydrodynamics), technology (revolutions in materials and power) and industrial societies. These military/commercial technologies (referred to as dual-use technologies hereafter) appeared and were developed during the period between the professionalization and the wartime mobilization of science and technology. What was the interrelation between this ship revolution and Japanese society? How does this interrelation in Japan compare with that in Britain, where both the marine turbine and the experimental tank were originally developed in the late nineteenth century? By posing these two questions with particular reference to the transfer structure of these advanced technologies of the day, the book challenges long-standing stereotypes of a catch-up industrialization through the transfer of Western science and technology, and proposes new models for looking at the process afresh.

General problems and models Within this context of the transfer of marine science and technology, the book critically examines two important but hitherto neglected general problems. First, what was the institutional structure that enabled the science and technology transfer, particularly the transfer of dual-use technologies, to take place as an important part of the industrialization process? Science and technology transfer is taken here to signify not only the spatial transfer of a certain field of science and technology from one place to another. It also includes the culturally and institutionally related phenomena that encouraged a specific science and technology to take root and to develop in its new context. Previous models offering frameworks for answering this problem fall broadly into two types: a product-cycle model adopted by economists, and various descriptive models adopted by historians. This book argues that despite their different outlooks, both models assume that in the presence of a certain technology gap technology transfer takes place just as water flows from a higher place to a lower. In contrast to this assumption, this book proposes a new model asserting that selection and adaptation mechanisms play a gatekeeper role, choosing one exemplar from among several available at the right time for transfer. The agents embodying such a gatekeeper role will be called technology gatekeepers or simply gatekeepers hereafter. And institutional structure means the stable patterns of behaviour of the agents involved and their relationships (be the relationships based on formally authorized connections or informal networks or mutual independence), which provided the environment for continuous exchange of information, materials, human resources and/or money.


The second general problem is a more concrete one. What was the institutional structure that enabled the heavy industrialization of Japan to take place at the turn of the century through the transfer of dual-use technologies from the West? Again, previous models offering frameworks for answering this problem fall broadly into two types: a government-directed industrialization model, and revised versions of that model which emphasize the role of local industries and their networks. This book proposes a new composite model, based upon different but equally important roles played independently by the public and private sectors. It argues that without such a composite model, it is impossible to understand the crucial and complex development of industrialization up to 1945 (and possibly afterwards) within a comparative perspective. The significance of the institutional structure and the new models becomes particularly revealing when they are contrasted with initial social conditions in Japan’s industrialization and initial strategies adopted to make science, technology and society work for each other. This general description and analysis will also provide an introduction which enables the reader to grasp basic facts necessary for understanding the subtleties of the detailed description and analysis that follows in later chapters.

A changing Japan in a changing world Nobody will deny that the Meiji Restoration of the mid-nineteenth century was one of the most drastic social changes that the non-Western world has ever experienced in the process of industrialization. Nor will anyone deny that the role of science and technology in the process deserves serious attention. Japanese traditional medicine (kanpo), arithmetic (wasan), and foot-bellows iron making (tatara seitetsu) already existed long before the Meiji period. However, most of the science and technology that contributed to Japan’s industrialization was introduced from the West.14 In this sense, the country’s industrialization since the Meiji period has been a more or less continuous process of transferring science and technology from the West (for example, introducing weights and measures, blast-furnace iron making, and so on) to very different social contexts. The process, however, consisted of much more than just purchasing machines and other products manufactured in the West for industrialization, for the following reason. Science originating in natural philosophy in the seventeenth century and technology originating from crafts in the ancient period were, as mentioned earlier, just about to become integrated around the mid-nineteenth century in the West. Accordingly it was extremely difficult for contemporary Japan to make the transfer of the emerging integrated science and technology as if importing ready-to-use bodies of knowledge and know-how. The transfer of science and technology forced the country to adapt itself to the changing relationship between

8


science and technology while undergoing drastic social change. This transfer must have required unique strategies, and ones which were relevant to contemporary social conditions. It is noteworthy in this connection that some Japanese were conscious enough to observe the ongoing scientific and technological revolution in the West. As early as 1887, Rinzaburo Shida, who in 1899 became the chief of the Engineering Bureau of the Ministry of Communications (Teishin Sho), contributed a pioneering article to the engineering journal Kogaku Soshi. The title was ‘The marriage of theory and experiment realizes industrial progress’ (Kogyo no shinpo wa riron to jikken tono shinwa ni yoru). The journal was started for the purpose of providing ‘the best means of promoting industrial enlightenment and enriching the nation.’15 In this article, Shida stated: ‘The recent industrial progress originated in the studies on the conservation of energy in physics and on chemical composition … Industrial progress springs from the marriage of theory and experiment.’16 As examples of industrial progress, he refers to (1) ‘improvement of steam machines’, (2) ‘improvement of electrical machinery (generators)’ and (3) ‘improvement of the soda manufacturing method and of use of wastes’.17 Shida insisted that the principle of the conservation of energy and inorganic and organic chemistry were essential to product and process innovation. Without knowledge of these, steam turbines, generators, soda crystals and soda ash could not be manufactured, and synthetic dyes could not be produced from waste coal tars. To convince his readers, Shida demonstrated how the works of J. P. Joule, J. J. Thomson, W. J. M. Rankine, H. L. Helmholtz, M. Faraday, N. Leblanc, and W. H. Perkin proved that ‘the concerted work of theory and experiment makes industrial progress possible’.18 Thus it is highly probable that Japan was able to, and possible that it had to, consciously adopt strategies to orient the transfer of science and technology in a direction that suited its ends. In fact, ‘Opinions on Industrialization’, a report issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce (Noshomu Sho) three years before Shida’s article, was the first to assert the necessity of such a strategy and take a long-term view of Japan’s industrialization. It states: ‘Planting and transplanting trees expecting a minor change in five years and a major change in ten years will not realize prosperity in a hundred years.’19 Based on this long-term outlook, this report presented a decentralized industrialization plan giving priority to the traditional local industries, which were expected to become developed and properly organized through government-controlled hierarchical social networks. Although this plan could not eventually be realized, it is significant that various strategies were actually proposed on the basis of a longterm outlook and feasible ones were selected in the light of contemporary social conditions.20


The role of the Ministry of Engineering and the Engineering College in the formation of infrastructure and human resources What specific social conditions then made possible what kind of strategies during Japan’s initial industrialization? Here an outline of the early institutional context of science and technology transfer under the well-known industry promotion policy of the government is in order. The salient feature of social conditions before initial industrialization was the lack of expertise in the ongoing scientific and technological revolution. And the first strategy adopted by the Meiji government was to utilize foreign employees (oyatoi gaikokujin), who made an immense contribution to the development of human resources by designing an institutional system relevant to the revolution.21 In this sense, the initial Japanese institutional system designed to link science, technology and industrial society had foreign origins. The history of the foreigner employment system dates back to the English and French language schools, both of which were established in the closing days of the Tokugawa period. Under the Meiji government, not only language teachers but also many other foreign personnel, including skilled workers, clerks, engineers and science teachers, were employed. Between 1872 and 1898, the Meiji government recruited 6193 foreign personnel in total, with Britain providing 766 foreign employees, more than any other country.22 To give one example relating to the ship revolution, James A. Ewing, a British mechanical engineer who later became prominent in that revolution (in 1897 he reported to the inventor of the marine turbine, Charles A. Parsons, on the trials of the first experimental turbine boat in the world),23 was employed by the government as a teacher from 1878 to 1883. The major government departments involved in manufacturing industries owed much to foreign employees both in terms of the departments’ design and the implementation of their work.24 Figure 1.1 shows the number of foreign employees in each department between 1876 and 1898. As Figure 1.1 shows, the Ministry of Engineering (Kobu Sho, created in 1870) and the Ministry of Education (Monbu Sho, created in 1871) each employed more foreigners than any other government department. In particular, the number for the Ministry of Engineering is striking since it indicates the number of foreigners employed only until 1885 when the ministry was abolished. Among the contributions of foreigners employed by that ministry, nothing was more important than the establishment of an institutional system designed to assimilate the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution in Japan’s own way and turn them to its industrialization. British employees among others helped establish the system, one that was very different from that in Britain.

10 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace 1200 1000

Persons

800 600 400 200 0

Engin.

Ed.

Foreign Admin.

Home

War Commun. Finance Land Agr./Com. Justice Hokkaido

Figure 1.1 Total number of foreign employees, by Japanese government department, in the Meiji period, 1876–98 Source: Based on Noboru Umeso, Oyatoi Gaikokujin (Foreign employees) (Tokyo: Kashima Kenkyujo Shuppankai, 1968), pp. 64–5 (data under ten persons omitted).

The relationship between the Ministry of Engineering and the Engineering College is pivotal to an understanding of this system. The Ministry of Engineering was established in 1870 and the Engineering College in 1873. The establishment of the Ministry of Engineering at such an early date was based on advice from a British railway engineer, Edmund Morell, employed by the government.25 The purpose of the ministry was to create a ‘strong and prosperous nation’ and ensure the ‘welfare of citizens.’ In accordance with the ‘Rich Nation, Strong Army’ (Fukoku Kyohei) policy, the Ministry of Engineering was expected to play the role of constructing an infrastructure to enrich the nation. The ministry devoted itself to meeting basic prerequisites for an industrial society, such as exploitation of mineral resources, railway construction and lighthouse installation, as well as managing factories and establishing telegraphy businesses. Mine development and railway construction accounted for nearly 70 per cent of the total expenditure (about 3.884 million yen) over the 13 years of the ministry’s existence.26 These two projects were essential to the initial industrialization. The railways linking some of the main cities (for example, Tokyo and Yokohama, and Otsu and Kobe) enabled quick transportation of men and goods. Meanwhile, the gold, silver and copper mining industry inherited from the Tokugawa shogunate was modernized by the introduction of Western technology, and provided the material for a new currency needed as a basis for the procurement of large amounts of capital for industrialization and also to acquire stronger foreign currencies. To implement the projects of the ministry efficiently, employees trained in Western science and technology were indispensable. Without a continuous supply of such trained personnel, Japanese industrialization with its aim of


building a rich nation would soon have tapered off. In this sense, continuous fostering of human resources was ‘the crucial key answering the urgent need’ in the initial industrialization.27 To satisfy this need, the Engineering College was founded under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Engineering. The college was as indebted to foreign employees for advice as the Ministry of Engineering had been, possibly even more so. The adviser here was a British engineer, Henry Dyer, who became the first principal.28 The Engineering College started with six-year courses made up of preparatory, advanced and shop training curricula ‘to foster professional engineers’.29 Its intended purpose was to foster ‘practical’ human resources rather than engaging in scientific and technological research.30 However, this does not mean that the college pursued only practical techniques to the neglect of education in scientific subjects. On the contrary, the college imposed upon the students a gruelling regime of examinations leading to the qualification, proving that they had received a ‘highly scientific training’.31 And the training was extremely strict, ‘question after question being fired in a scolding manner’.32 Candidates who passed the entrance examinations in English, arithmetic, algebra, geometry and geography (prescribed by the rules as revised in March 1877) were admitted to the college. Once admitted, however, they were obliged to study extraordinarily hard to pass examinations held every week and semester and pass the major examinations at the end of the second and fourth years and also the examination for graduation at the end of the sixth year. They also had to submit graduation theses. Further, those students who succeeded in graduating were classified into three classes, depending on their record during their whole stay at the college. And the bachelor’s degree was awarded only to first-class graduates.33 All the lectures were given in English by foreign employees. The professional qualification thus obtained from the Engineering College also guaranteed a high social status, because the graduates were appointed officers of the Ministry of Engineering without any further examination. The terms of appointment also differentiated between graduates with the degree of bachelor and those without. First-class graduates were appointed as seventh grade engineers (salary: 30 yen per month) and second-class graduates as eighth grade ones (salary: 25 yen per month).34 In these respects, the Engineering College was very different from any university of today. The Engineering College qualified professional engineers to enrich the nation under the industry promotion policy of the Ministry of Engineering. The qualifications, in turn, led graduates directly to the Ministry of Engineering and helped them achieve their due social status. Thus, the college played a dual role, awarding the qualification and social status simultaneously. The Engineering College and the Ministry of Engineering had a closer relationship than merely that between a public body for higher education and its administrative authority. They formed an integrated system to promote industrialization together. This was not only because of the system for entrance of

12 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace

graduates into positions in the ministry mentioned above, but also because the courses of study at the college themselves closely reflected the needs of the ministry. Professional schools including schools of mining engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and telegraphy were set up by the college, which corresponded directly to the types of business under the control of the Ministry of Engineering.35 Among the alumni of the college was Rinzaburo Shida, mentioned earlier, who was the sole graduate of the telegraphy school of the college in 1879, and entered the Ministry of Engineering in 1883 after about three years studying at the University of Glasgow.36 Thus, based on the initial strategy of utilizing foreign employees, Japan created an integrated institutional system which ensured that industrialization and professionalization proceeded in the same direction. The creation of this system represented the Meiji government’s second strategy. The rare situation was produced that individual efforts to attain social status as professional engineers would directly satisfy the nation’s pressing need for industrialization. In 1868, the feudal clans surrendered their autonomy to the central government, and Japanese society was able to make use of abundant human resources (especially low-class samurai warriors) released from the restrictions associated with their social standing in a traditional feudal system and seeking a future. Their strong motivation to rise in the new system after the collapse of the old feudal system contributed greatly to their achievement of status as professional engineers, through whose work the government-directed industrialization proceeded. In turn, this government-directed industrialization produced good opportunities for those ambitious men of lower samurai origins who wished to establish themselves as professional engineers, so that this entire process was also extremely effective.37 What did this second strategy, based on the first, achieve? We already know that there was an increase in industrial production, a rising level of education, urbanization, and so on, which taken all together indicate rapid industrialization.38 This suggests that the government-directed dual strategy corresponding to the two social factors (shortage of experts and these hungry samurai with the desire to get ahead) was on the whole successful in the initial industrialization process. And this dual strategy also contributed to the process of professionalization of engineers, as will now be explained.

Emerging professionalization: domestic professional societies During the initial industrialization from the early Meiji period to the early twentieth century, professional societies in Japan provided an almost entirely domestic system for assimilating transferred Western science and technology, which led to a break from the dependence upon foreign employees in science and technology. We can use these professional societies as a measure of the general state of professionalization in science and technology. Professionalization here means a process satisfying the following two


conditions at the same time. (1) Specialization: Specialized work is done anticipating a reference group of peers in a specific field of science and technology. (2) Vocationalization: Specialized work gives opportunities of making a living to those producing it. The reason for our focus on the professional societies as a measure of the general state of professionalization in science and technology is that, first, the degree of specialization can be seen in the number of professional societies based on peer review in a specific field of science and technology; and second, the level of vocationalization can be seen in the number of regular members, that is to say, members whose occupation was strictly examined before admission to the societies.39 In a word, these professional societies provide us with general criteria for discriminating between the initial science and technology transfer made by foreign employees and the inception of professionalization. Let us consider degree of specialization first, Table 1.1 lists the main professional societies in science and technology established since the first year of the Meiji period.

Table 1.1 Main professional societies of science and technology established in Japan, 1875–1914 Year

Professional society

1875 1877 1878 1878 1879 1879 1880 1881 1882 1882 1884 1885 1886 1888 1891 1893 1897 1897 1899 1900

Tokyo Medical Society (Tokyo Igaku Kaisha) Tokyo Mathematical Society (Tokyo Sugaku Kaisha) Chemical Society (Kagaku Kai) Tokyo Biological Society (Tokyo Seibutsu Gakkai) Engineering Society (Kogaku Kai) Tokyo Geological Association (Tokyo Chigaku Kai) Japan Seismology Society (Nippon Jishin Gakkai) Tokyo Pharmacology Society (Tokyo Yakugaku Kai) Tokyo Botanical Society (Tokyo Shokubutsu Gakkai) Tokyo Meteorological Society (Tokyo Kisho Gakkai) Anthropological Society (Jinrui Gakkai) Japanese Association of Mining (Nippon Kogyo Kai) Society for Architecture (Zoka Gakkai) Electrical Engineering Society (Denki Gakkai) Society for Ceramic Industry (Yoko Kai) Association of Telegraphy (Denshin Kyokai) Mechanical Engineering Society (Kikai Gakkai) Shipbuilding Association (Zosen Kyokai) Society for Industrial Chemistry (Kogyo Kagaku Kai) Japan Society for Engineering in Portland Cement (Nippon Portland Semento Gyo Gijutsu Kai) Society for Ordnance Engineering (Kahei Gakkai) Civil Engineering Society (Doboku Gakkai)

1905 1914

Source: Based on Hiroshi Ishiyama, ‘Nihon no gaku kyokai’ (Professional societies in Japan), Gijutsu to Keizai, No. 204 (1984), pp. 26–38.


As the table shows, in the decade to 1884, although a number of professional societies were founded for pure scientists and the medical profession, engineering had only the Engineering Society (Kogaku Kai), founded in 1879. Professional societies for engineering as the professional sciences and technologies we conceive today were yet to be established. As far as specialization was concerned, pure science experienced it first because its main subfields had already been established at the time. No professional societies for engineering were founded until 1885, probably because the scientific and technological revolution was started during the second half of the nineteenth century and specialists in its sub-fields were still emerging. For example, even in Britain, the first country where professionals established their social status, there were only two professional societies in the sub-fields of engineering established before the second half of the nineteenth century: the Institution of Civil Engineers founded in 1818 and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers founded in 1847. And the fact that independent main professional societies for the sub-fields of engineering, except for the above two, only appeared during the second half of the nineteenth century provides a strong corroboration of this synchronic emergence of specialists in the sub-fields of engineering (see Table 1.2). Emerging specialists in all these sub-fields in Japan belonged to the Engineering Society that had been founded in 1879, which continued to exert considerable influence on these newly appearing sub-fields. In fact, at the foundation of the Electrical Engineering Society in 1888, there was still the following objection: ‘Since there is already the Engineering Society, we do not need the Electrical Engineering Society.’40 The demand for specialization seems to have become stronger than such opposition some time between 1885 and the early twentieth century, resulting in the appearance of the Electrical Engineering Society, the Association of Telegraphy, the Mechanical Engineering Society, the Shipbuilding Association, and so on. The Engineering Society was finally forced to revise its articles of association to abolish the outdated individual membership embracing all specialists and was reborn as a union of professional societies in each engineering sub-field on 30 August 1922.41 Thus, based on the trend of engineering-related professional societies in respective fields becoming equivalent to what we today conceive as the specialties of a professional science and technology, specialization came to take a definite form during the period from 1885 to the early twentieth century, with membership of a number of specialized societies being the clearest manifestation.42 As for vocationalization, Figure 1.2 shows the change over time in the number of regular members of the Electrical Engineering Society and the Mechanical Engineering Society. The two societies were the most important contemporary engineering-related professional societies, and their fields were the two main models for other engineering fields of the day, and have now become the orthodox bases of a professional science and technology.43

Introduction: Problems and Approaches 15 Table 1.2 Main professional societies for engineering established in Britain, 1850–1900 Year

Professional society

1852 1854 1857 1857 1860 1863 1865 1866 1869 1871 1873 1874 1874 1875 1876 1878 1881 1884 1884 1888 1889 1889 1892 1893 1895 1896 1897 1900 1900

North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers Society of Engineers The Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland The South Wales Institute of Engineers The Institution of Naval Architects The Institution of Gas Engineers Manchester Society of Architects Royal Aeronautical Society The Iron and Steel Institute Society of Telegraph Engineers The Institution of Municipal Engineers Society for Analytical Chemistry Birmingham and Five Counties Architectural Association Institution of Royal Engineers The Liverpool Engineering Society The Mining Institute of Scotland Society of Chemical Industry Society of Dyers and Colourists North-East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders Gloucestershire Engineering Society Institute of Marine Engineers The Institution of Mining Engineers The Institution of Mining and Metallurgy The West of Scotland Iron and Steel Institute Institution of Engineers-in-Charge The Institution of Water Engineers The Institution of Heating and Ventilation Engineers The Institute of Refrigeration The British Ceramic Society

Note: Even if founded during the period, societies that, judging from their objects, cannot be called professional (because, for example, their object was confined to education alone) are not listed. Source: Based on Scientific and Learned Societies of Great Britain, 60th edn (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1962): section III chemistry, section VII engineering and architecture, section XVI other societies.

We can see the steady increase in the number of regular members admitted into these two representative societies, both of which required a strict examination of the occupation of any candidate. The number of regular members showed remarkable growth, especially after 1910. This indicates that vocationalization proceeded more or less in parallel with specialization. The trend of domestic professional societies shows that the government’s initial strategy of transfer of science and technology by foreign employees

16 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace 2000 1800 1600

Persons

1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 1888

1893

1898

1903

Electrical Engineering Society

1908

1913

1918

Mechanical Engineering Society

Figure 1.2 Change over time in the number of regular members of the Electrical Engineering Society and the Mechanical Engineering Society in Japan Source: Denki Gakkai 100 Nenshi (A century of the Electrical Engineering Society)(Tokyo: Denki Gakkai, 1988), p. 66; Nihon Kikai Gakkai 60 Nenshi (60 years of the Mechanical Engineering Society)(Tokyo: Nihon Kikai Gakkai, 1958), p. 45.

was followed by professionalization up to the 1910s. The institutional system producing the infrastructure and human resources designed against the background of the industry promotion policy of the governmental sector (Ministry of Engineering, Engineering College) thus seems to have paved the way for professionalization as well. Of course, the process of professionalization was not the same as in Britain, where the private sector (for example, groups and individuals involved in the ‘decline of science’ movement, endowment of science movement, technical education movement, and so on) served as the driving force within the long tradition of classical independent professions (lawyer, clergyman, doctor).44 At the least, the above introductory description and analysis incontrovertibly shows that on the whole the dual strategy of the Japanese government promoted industrialization almost in parallel with professionalization in the initial stage extending from the early Meiji period to the 1910s.

A new gatekeeper model of science and technology transfer The general description and analysis of the initial industrialization process given above points to the importance of the institutional structure in science and technology transfer. This point bears directly on the pitfalls of the previous models adopted to explain technology transfer, and will help explain the significance of the new gatekeeper model. Previous models used to explain technology transfer are of two kinds, as mentioned earlier. The economic models, such as the product cycle model, tend to focus on the profit-maximizing behaviour of private companies


within a context of general economic growth. The historical models, such as descriptive models employed for explaining specific individual cases, on the other hand, analyse the broader context within which private companies transferred specific technologies. Although the economic models apparently stress the homogeneous behaviour of homo economicus and the historical models seem more sensitive to the heterogeneous behaviour of socially, politically, culturally and ideologically different agents, seemingly divergent perspectives share an unexpectedly similar outlook. Both models tend to start their explanation by specifying various factors furthering or hindering technology transfer after technology transfer is already assumed to have taken place.45 Particularly in explaining Japan’s heavy industrialization around the turn of the century and afterwards, the above assumption about technology transfer leads observers to appeal to the general level of ability of human resources (for example, abilities of professional engineers and foremen) or to historical accident (for example, slightly before the transfer of the marine steam turbine, Japan had coincidentally introduced the water turbine for generators). The assumption further leads them to neglect elucidation of the role of the complex institutional structure in the process of technology transfer. By focusing on the patterns of behaviour and institutional settings of the agents involved and their networks, the new gatekeeper model attempts to sidestep this simple-minded ex post facto approach to science and technology transfer and to clarify the institutional structure of the transfer process itself. A simplified formulation of this new gatekeeper model can be presented using hydraulics as an analogy: the new gatekeeper model can be contrasted with the previous models as follows in Figures 1.3 and 1.4. As these figures show, both models are general enough to accommodate various cases, but the new model displays two essential characteristics that highlight the significant role played by technology gatekeepers. The previous models assert that a single exemplar is transferred just as water flows from a higher to a lower level. By contrast, the new gatekeeper model makes two important points. First, there should be assumed to be multiple exemplars as candidates for transfer. Second, of these, one is transferred by technology gatekeepers fulfilling the function of a selection mechanism to single out one exemplar, controlling the timing of its transfer, and making arrangements for its initial assimilation. The focus of questions to be considered using this new gatekeeper model is the selection and assimilation mechanisms that converted the ongoing scientific and technological revolution into industrialization through the complex process of science and technology transfer. In particular, the patterns of behaviour of all the key agents in the transfer, their relationships, and the part the entire institutional structure played as a strategic gatekeeper must have profound implications for the selection and assimilation mechanisms.


Gatekeepers

Figure 1.3 The new gatekeeper model of science and technology transfer Note: The upper vessels indicate multiple exemplars in the West, and the lowest vessel indicates the ultimate place to which they are transferred. Arrows indicate the flow of science and technology. The levels of water in the upper vessels are not necessarily the same, and there can be more than two upper vessels.

Figure 1.4 Previous models of science and technology transfer

Dimensions of ‘gatekeepers’ Clarification of the term ‘gatekeepers’ is in order here. After the introduction in 1943 of ‘gatekeepers’ as a conceptual tool in social science there appeared two streams in the development of the concept,46 one in the sociology of science, the other in organizational studies on technological innovations.


The first explicit reference to gatekeepers in the sociology of science was made in 1967 (gatekeepers as editors of academic journals, to highlight the selection process of articles for scientific journals).47 What is common throughout the usage in the sociology of science is that the word indicates peer individuals who allocate rewards and/or resources in accordance with the evaluation of the quality of activities (the quality of articles, for example). In organizational studies of technological innovation the first explicit reference appeared in 1977, when gatekeepers were referred to as key persons in R&D organizations who most expose themselves to information outside their organizations and improve organizational performance.48 Although the usage developed further in multiple directions, the term indicates particular individuals throughout.49 Compared with this usage, ‘gatekeepers’ here has three new dimensions. First, the term as defined here and used in this study does not refer to individuals but to collective agents fulfilling certain roles, whereas hitherto it has always referred to individuals who occupy certain positions.50 Secondly, associated with this, the gatekeeper here is defined by the roles it plays, not as a particular agent. As mentioned earlier, there are three such roles: (a) selecting one exemplar from among several available; (b) assimilating what is selected; (c) controlling the timing of selection and assimilation. Thirdly, as a result of these two new dimensions, the concept of gatekeeper here makes it possible to reveal institutional structure made up of the complex networks and patterns of behaviour of collective agents. These dimensions of gatekeepers will enable us to disentangle the intricate relationship between the British ship revolution and Japanese industrialization and further to probe the nature of the relationship. The chapters that follow will consider how the different key agents such as the governmental and private sectors were involved in different ways as technology gatekeepers in the transfer of the marine steam turbine and the experimental tank. They will also reconstruct the overall institutional structure that made the transfer possible, in order to clarify the characteristic selection and assimilation mechanisms instrumental in the process.

A new composite model of industrialization The government-directed industrialization model seems to be not far off the mark with regard to the initial strategies and social conditions of Japan as the basic facts presented earlier show. Notwithstanding this approximate conformity of the model to the initial state, however, this study proposes a new composite model, based on different but equally important roles played independently by both the public and private sectors. The argument that will be put forward, and supported by the detailed case studies of the ship revolution that follow, is that the strategy of the government would not have been sufficiently effective without the roles played by the private sector, particularly around the turn of the century. By then, the foreigners


employed by the government and the integrated system of the Ministry of Engineering and the Engineering College had already given way to professional engineers who belonged to the relevant domestic professional societies and were employed by the private as well as by the public sector. They also began to replace foreigners employed by private companies in the process of the ship revolution. Particularly in such dual-use technologies as the marine turbine and the experimental tank, which were developed in Britain and transferred to Japan at the time, both private shipbuilding companies and the public sector (including the military) together formed a new complex institutional structure to assimilate and improve the technologies. And the relationship between the military and private sectors that was developed in the process differed significantly from the stereotype of a single-minded prewar military techno-nationalism uniformly controlled by the state. Meanwhile, it is well known that contemporary British society was moving away from adherence to classical laissez-faire principles through a ‘revolution in government’, whose influence was as striking in shipbuilding and marine engineering as in other fields. The Royal Naval College, set up in 1873, was a typical manifestation of this shift, since it was the first public body to succeed in breaking away from the long amateur tradition of naval architects and marine engineers in Britain after the demise of the unsatisfactory experiments represented by the School of Naval Architecture and the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, which were started in 1811 and 1864 respectively. It also opened the door to private students coming from shipbuilding companies to acquire a professional training as naval architects and marine engineers.51 In short, starting from contrasting states, both Japan and Britain seem to have entered a similar stage of getting both the public and private sectors fruitfully involved in the ship revolution around the turn of the century. A new composite model could therefore provide a more fertile and realistic basis for scrutinizing the institutional structure of the revolution in Japan within a comparative perspective with Britain.

Dimensions of ‘composite’ ‘Composite’ here has two different meanings. First, it means that the nature of the agents concerned is not uniform but a composite of the private and public sectors. Second, it means that the patterns of behaviour of the agents are not uniform but a composite of carefully planned and daring risk-taking behaviours. The book will focus on the different social functions of the two patterns of behaviour. Agents and their patterns of behaviour are conceptually independent of each other so that the nature of any correspondence between the two cannot be predetermined but is


dependent on actual individual cases and their contexts at a particular time. This is exactly the point where the government-directed industrialization model becomes stereotypical. It is also a point where this model, and its revised versions focusing on local industries and their networks, can be critically examined, and based on this examination the significance of the new composite model can be more precisely specified. As for the governmentdirected industrialization model, the following sentence written by a Japanese sociologist for the purpose of ‘matching the history of Japanese modernization with a sociological theory’, is revealing:52 For the industrialisation of latecomers there is no alternative to government-directed industrialisation ‘from the top’. Japanese industrialisation was the first instance in the non-Western world of such a planned industrialisation.53 We can clearly perceive here that two completely different things are assumed to be the same: that the government is the agent is one thing; that the behaviour is planned is another. Particularly, whether the government carefully planned the behaviour is an open question, which can only be determined by empirical case studies. The rather simplistic assumption represented by the above quotation is the result of skipping such empirical case studies. There are many other very similar assumptions not only in sociology but also in the fields of economic history, political science, and history of science and technology, among others.54 It is not so difficult also to find the assumption introduced into the works of Western scholars even in illustrating theoretical formulations that are made independent of studies of Japan’s industrialization. When the place of the upper class in capitalist society is discussed, for instance, one may come across such statements as: ‘Japan and Germany … provide one polar type … in both cases the transition from a ständische Gesellschaft to an industrial society was achieved under direction “from the top”.’ The ‘top’ here is defined as an ascendancy within the nation-state ‘stabilised … by an aristocratic monopoly of the officer corps and the state bureaucracy’, and taking the two statements together, one can hardly avoid the corollary of industrialization through government planning.55 At this point, the revised versions of the government-directed industrialization model that are provided by institutional historians of science and technology prudently sidestep this a priori assumption. They do so by making extremely detailed empirical case studies of how the governmentdirected industrialization policy in Japan was designed, revised and implemented.56 In particular, Chikayoshi Kamatani’s work deserves attention, since his very thorough research destroyed the assumption by presenting


a rich historical description of national research institutes up to the 1910s, which he relates to the complex internal structure of government-directed policy. Keeping strictly within the bounds of primary source materials, he presents significant provincial examples showing that the government-directed industrialization policy was not clearly thought through step by step nor universally adopted in Japan’s initial industrialization process (for example, local networks of the traditional pottery industry persisted). According to Kamatani, it was not until the 1880s that ‘A new way of national policy making began to be formed such that reports of advisory boards of ministries, together with discussion in parliament, led to decisions on industrial policy.’57 He thus sidesteps the pitfalls of the stereotypical uniform governmentdirected industrialization model and the assumption normally associated with it, and a revised model focusing on local industrial networks underlies his work instead. However, this completely fails to give equivalent attention to the private sector.58 This failure emerges most clearly in the author’s incremental view of history in his description of the development of national research institutes based largely on the simplistic presupposition that administration of and legislation relating to national research institutes prepared the way for the full institutionalization of science and technology and industrialization. It fails to analyse the overall institutional structure of the industrialization taking into account the endogenous dynamics of the private sector and their subtle, often informal relationship with the public sector, including the military. These dynamics lie buried in voluminous official documents. In consequence, at several vital points, the general problems concerning the dynamics of the interaction between science, technology and industrial society (for example, the overall institutional structure of R&D including the diverse nature of the different agents) are left to the interpretation of the individual reader.59 Thus, the social history approach to science and technology can provide a basis for the revised government-directed industrialization models focused on local industries and their networks but tends to lack a big picture to place and interpret them within a consistent framework.60 Contrariwise, the government-directed industrialization model assumed by many social scientists can be an approximation to the initial industrialization but tends to lack comprehensive primary source evidence, which is indispensable for elaborating and expanding it in the context of subsequent social change. The new composite model to be exemplified in the following chapters aims to base itself on both a consistent big picture and comprehensive primary source evidence concerning the public and private sectors involved in the ship revolution. And this book will focus on Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard and the Imperial Japanese Navy as typical examples of the private and public sectors respectively. In doing so, it will suggest a hitherto neglected stage of later industrialization starting around the turn of the century.


The composition of the book In sum, what is argued above provides three bases for the analysis in the five chapters that follow: 1. Japan’s science and technology transfer from the beginning of the Meiji period cannot be grasped simply as a flow of goods. It involved strategies for introducing and developing fast-changing sciences and technologies to be integrated into a professionalized science and technology while moving fast towards industrialization. With full awareness of the ongoing contemporary scientific and technological revolution, Japan from the outset consciously adopted these strategies within a long-term outlook. 2. There was a dual strategy for the initial industrialization by the Meiji government, which corresponded to two social factors. First, it created a foreigner employment system to make up for the lack of human resources, and obtained advice, particularly from the British employees, on designing an institutional system for industrialization. Second, it modified that advice and created an integrated system for simultaneously producing infrastructure and reproducing human resources, by opening a door for those who had lost their means of subsistence due to the collapse of the feudal system and sought a chance of upward social mobility. The Ministry of Engineering and the Engineering College constituted a system in which fostering qualified engineers and providing their career opportunities were directly coupled. Based on this dual strategy adopted by the government, industrialization and professionalization proceeded efficiently in parallel. 3. However, the government-directed industrialization model and its revised versions are difficult to support as a satisfactory framework for explaining developments around the turn of the century. Although they may provide a first-degree approximation to the initial industrialization process, a significant departure from this process started about that time particularly in terms of the interaction between science, technology and industrial society. A new composite model provides a more consistent, realistic and fertile big picture of the changing institutional structure of this period based on comprehensive primary source evidence that follows, presented within a comparative perspective with Britain. Since that changing institutional structure intervened in a process of science and technology transfer from Britain to Japan that was far more complex than a mere gravity flow from a higher to a lower level, the new gatekeeper model is more to the point than the previous models in explaining this process. The book’s five other chapters develop the following arguments based on these general insights. Chapter 2 first elucidates the structure of the marine technology transfer with particular reference to the gigantic science and


technology gap that existed between Britain and Japan at the turn of the century. For this it takes up the experimental tank, which was a dual-use technology indispensable for obtaining an optimum hull design for large, fast ships and was transferred to Japan in 1908. The experimental tank became pivotal in the struggle for global hegemony at the time and was also used for testing the performance of propellers of turbine ships. The chapter argues that the institutional structure of the transfer as a whole was not through government guidance alone nor through civilian initiative alone, but the combined product of both. This composite structure has profound implications that enable us to overthrow the long-standing stereotype of government-directed industrialization and its revised versions. The chapter will outline the implications. Chapter 3 develops further aspects of this composite structure by analyzing the roles played by the Imperial Japanese Navy and Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard in transferring the marine steam turbine, another dual-use technology, to Japan. By scrutinizing the structure of the transfer of the marine turbine, this chapter provides valuable clues for a grasp of a prototypical form of the prewar military-industrial-university complex. The two different roles played independently by the Navy and Mitsubishi formed a unique transfer structure, through which a prototypical military-industrial-university complex emerged. These two different roles converged in the transfer of the marine turbine within a surprisingly short period (ten years) due to the interpersonal network of the Navy and Mitsubishi engineers, based on their common background as graduates of the Imperial University of Tokyo. This institutional structure laid a unique foundation for exploiting latecomers’ advantages. Chapter 4 continues the treatment of the prototypical military-industrialuniversity complex, focusing on the similarities and differences in ‘spin-on’ from the private to military sectors both in the development of the marine turbine in Britain and its transfer to Japan. The usual view on the militaryindustrial-university complex in the prewar period would see the marine turbine as a typical case of ‘spin-off’ from the military to the private sectors. Both in Britain and Japan, however, this view proves to be simplistic. ‘Spinon’ from the private sector to the military played a more important role than might be expected. The difference between the two countries lay in the meaning of initial cost. In Britain, it literally meant the initial development cost. For Japan, it meant the cost of spreading the risks peculiar to the adoption of a single type of technology. Latecomers’ advantages will be reconsidered by specifying the implications of this subtle but significant difference for the government and for the private sector in Japan. Chapter 5 also concerns the prototypical military-industrial-university complex, describing and analyzing the process of ‘spin-off’ from the military to the private sector, through which the experimental tanks were institutionalized as national research institutes in Britain and Japan. In Britain, William Froude first developed the experimental tank in 1872 with financial


assistance from the Royal Navy, but its ‘spin-off’, the institutionalization of the experimental tank as a national research institute, was extremely delayed, due to stubborn resistance and funding difficulties. The first institutional breakthrough was made only in the first decade of the twentieth century. Japan experienced similar problems in the 1920s, but the solution found to the problem of how to carry out such ‘spin-off’ was significantly different from that in Britain. This chapter argues that this difference originated from the process of institutionalization of research itself in each country, rather than ingrained national tradition or historical accident. Sociological implications of this difference in methods of ensuring ‘spin-off’ will be suggested, by highlighting what institutional elements in the interaction between science, technology and industrial society Japan did not transfer. Chapter 6 sums up the overall structure and function of the ship revolution from the viewpoint of technology gatekeepers involved in Japanese industrialization around the turn of the century and extends them within the broader context of wartime mobilization from the second decade of the twentieth century to 1945. In particular, it takes up a serious but little-known failure with the standard Japanese naval turbine that occurred immediately before the outbreak of the Second World War. Particular reference is made to the failure’s relation to the development trajectory of the ship revolution in prewar Japan. An essential point in this concluding argument is that the failure happened at the culmination of Japan’s success in assimilating the results of the ship revolution and developing that revolution in its own way. (This strongly suggests that the failure, by unexpectedly bringing the established standard naval turbine into question, had a profound implication for the Imperial Japanese Navy’s input into the decision whether to go to war with the US and Britain in 1941.) Based on the careful examination of this little-known failure within the previous development trajectory determined by technology gatekeepers, this final chapter presents a new framework that significantly integrates both ‘spin-off’ and ‘spin-on’ aspects within the interaction between science, technology and industrial society. The social framework connecting the British ship revolution with Japanese industrialization is thus expanded not only from the perspective of technology gatekeepers effecting successful technology transfer and development but also from the perspective of structural pitfalls inherent in the role of technology gatekeepers. The key idea running through the book’s entire argument is the composite structure within which the public and private sectors acted as strategic gatekeepers. How is it concretely embodied in the ship revolution? And what new picture of the interaction between science, technology and industrial society within comparative and socio-historical contexts can be developed based on this key idea? The reader will find the answer to these questions in the pages that follow.

2 The Technology Gatekeepers: The Role of the Navy and Mitsubishi in the Ship Revolution

This chapter tries to specify the roles of technology gatekeepers by elucidating the mechanisms through which the experimental tank embodying the ship revolution was transferred from Britain to Japan across the gap in the level of marine technology existing between the two countries. The experimental tank is the key element in the ship revolution in hull design, since it is an indispensable device for determining optimal hull design, especially that with the least resistance, based on ship model experiments. It was critical in the construction of large-scale ships capable of high speed, and held the key to the struggle for global hegemony at the turn of the century. This is because both building large-scale and/or high-speed ships required designers to address the same physical constraints, since both types called for movement through the water with the least resistance. It should also be remembered that ships, including naval vessels escorting merchant ones, provided the sole means of intercontinental mass transportation at the time, making possible a constant flow of people and goods throughout the world. This chapter focuses on the behaviour patterns of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard and the Imperial Japanese Navy, two key technology gatekeepers which were involved in the transfer of this apparatus in different ways. The experimental tank was obviously a dual-use technology commonly crucial to industrial society experiencing the ship revolution during the struggle for global hegemony at the turn of the century. But the question to be specifically posed is whether all industrial society at the time seized upon the experimental tank and introduced it in the same manner. The answer is no, because the processes through which the experimental tank was introduced were not common to the whole world. So then, how did Japan transfer the experimental tank from Britain, which constructed the first experimental tank in the world and at the time had a higher level of science and technology than Japan? What insight can we get from the transfer structure of the tank with respect to the nature of technology gatekeepers? This chapter first specifies the significance of the experimental tank as material for a case study. This process will clarify how extraordinary the idea 26

The Technology Gatekeepers 27

of the experimental tank was within contemporary British marine technology, and thereby show that an even greater science and technology gap than might be expected existed at the time between Britain and Japan. Then follows the description and analysis of how the gap was handled in the transfer of the experimental tank to Japan, focusing on Mitsubishi’s involvement in the transfer. And attention will be given to the different behaviour of the Navy, which was also involved in the transfer, to make a further analysis of the transfer process and to probe its mechanism. The final section summarizes the overall argument and examines its implications for the nature of the technology gatekeepers in peacetime and wartime.

The industrialization of Japan, the transfer of science and technology, and technology gatekeepers A viewpoint centred on the idea of a catch-up industrialization could be applied as a means of understanding the transfer of a professionalized science and technology to a Japan that was industrializing at the turn of the century.1 Tetsu Hiroshige was the first to propound this type of view of industrialization. He started from the realization that Western science and technology became integrated into a professionalized science and technology during the second half of the nineteenth century. By chance, just around the same time, Western science and technology were transferred to Japan as a means for industrialization. So, he claimed, there was not much difference between the West and Japan in terms of the start of the interaction of a professionalized science and technology and industrial society, the time lag being at the most a few decades.2 His view certainly hits the mark as far as the time lag between the West and Japan in the utilization of a professionalized science and technology in an industrialization process is concerned. But if such a view is generalized and the interaction between science, technology and Japanese society is seen as determined by the timing of industrialization alone, then that would be a different story. The reason is that the statement that the time lag happened to be small is quite different from saying that everything went well as a result. Therefore, to elucidate the positive role played by technology gatekeepers in Japan’s industrialization based on the concrete case of the experimental tank transfer to the country, it is critical first to break down the problem into the following two sub-questions. (1) To what degree was there a gap at the turn of the century in the level of contemporary marine technology between Japan and Britain where the experimental tank was originally developed?3 (2) How did the technology gatekeepers handle the gap and, whether the transfer of the tank from Britain to Japan was a success or a failure, how did the institutional structure they formed contribute to the transfer? Before entering into the description and analysis of the case, preliminary considerations with respect to the social backgrounds of both questions will


be useful for explaining to the reader the special significance of the experimental tank. First, the experimental tank provides a very suitable case to judge the contemporary science and technology gap between Britain and Japan. There is a variation in this gap between the West and Japan depending upon the field. The experimental tank deserves attention for the following reason. Both in Japan and most Western countries, one of the first key industries contributing to heavy industrialization around the turn of the century was shipbuilding. As each country began to employ the experimental tank in shipbuilding just at that period, the tank provides a valuable case to estimate the science and technology gap between the West and Japan because heavy industrialization began at roughly the same period in both. In addition, within the shipbuilding industry, which had depended highly on traditional skills, the newly appearing experimental tank marked the beginning of a break from dependence on traditional skills, since it was designed to be put to use separately from the production process where ruleof-thumb technologies based on traditional skills had a strong influence. It became a useful technology with a crucial influence upon modern hull design only after being linked with scientific principles (for example, hydrodynamics) by professional naval architects who came to play a distinct role from that played by traditional skilled workers in shipbuilding. In this respect, the experimental tank provides a very good example of the integration of science and technology that was ongoing at the turn of the century. Therefore, it enables us to estimate the science and technology gap between the West and Japan on an equal footing in terms of the changing relationship between science, technology and industrial society of which contemporary professional naval architects were an embodiment, and therefore the timing of the integration of science and technology in shipbuilding.4 Keeping in mind the special significance of the experimental tank mentioned above, and taking the new gatekeeper model of science and technology transfer set out in Chapter 1 as a guide, the behaviour patterns of the agents involved in the transfer of the experimental tank from Britain to Japan will be described and analysed in detail.5 The first striking point in the description and analysis is how astonishing the idea of the experimental tank was within contemporary naval architecture, which will make clear the enormous science and technology gap existing at the time of its transfer to Japan.

How large was the science and technology gap? On 19 March 1869, two years after the Meiji Restoration, the 10th session of the Institution of Naval Architects (abbreviated to INA hereafter) was held in London. After a presentation on hull resistance by John I. Thornycroft (member of the Institution of Civil Engineers), a discussion developed in a quite unexpected direction.6 There were three major persons involved: Charles Lamport, shipbuilder; C. W. Merrifield, mathematician, FRS (Fellow


of the Royal Society); John Scott Russell, naval architect, FRS, the VicePresident of the INA. Their discussion on this occasion eloquently tells how revolutionary the idea of the experimental tank was within contemporary naval architecture: C. LAMPORT: I think Mr. Thornycroft comes before us very much like the great mathematician and engineer, Archimedes, when he said, ‘Give me a fulcrum and I will move the world.’ Mr. Thornycroft says, ‘Ascertain for me eight constants, and I will tell you the result of the speed of your ship.’ These constants are the very things we require. What I was going to suggest … is simply that they [the Council of the INA] should urge upon the Government … the necessity of making some reliable experiments upon the forms of ships in order to ascertain these … I believe the only reliable data … are derived from … experiments made by the late Colonel Beaufoy. Those experiments are of very little value to sea-going vessels. They are made with … masses 8 feet below the surface of the water. … Therefore … it [a programme of full-scale ship experiments] might be brought forward and discussed on the present occasion. C. W. MERRIFIELD: The British Association [for the Advancement of Science] being at work in that direction, with the ultimate intention, on their part, of going to the Government as soon as they have determined what experiments it will be available to perform, probably it would be premature and undesirable on the part of this Institution to take any decided action. I do not wish to burke discussion, but merely wish to give that explanation. C. LAMPORT: I confess that I am somewhat surprised that our Honorary Secretary should have made the observations he has; I should have thought that he would have been one of the most jealous, for the honour of this Institution, that it should not allow a matter of this importance … I may say, its very means of livelihood, to pass from our hands to another body.7

After fairly heated discussion, John Scott Russell, the Vice-President of the INA, at last entered the discussion, remarking: ‘Give us one ship of which we know the shape thoroughly … and if these … simple experiments were made, and handed to us, and put upon the black board, we should leave this room a great deal wiser men than we came into it.’8 These were the responses of professional naval architects when a longstanding and widely believed ‘law of the resistance of vessels, varying as the velocity squared’ was about to be challenged by scientific investigation on the ground that it ‘does not hold good even for low velocities’.9 In essence, the ground of their opposition to the challenge was, as the above discussion clearly shows, a strong reliance upon rule of thumb, particularly upon fullscale ship experiments, for determining the resistance of vessels. Even the


experiments the British Association for the Advancement of Science was working out, to which C. W. Merrifield referred to appease C. Lamport, were also largely based on the same tradition. At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Norwich in August 1868, C. W. Merrifield read a paper ‘On the necessity for further experimental knowledge respecting the propulsion of ships’. In that paper he earnestly pointed out an urgent need to make ‘direct experiments on the traction and propulsion of full-sized vessels of usual type’. In compliance with his strong request, the Steam-ship Performance Committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was formed. And the majority of the Committee adopted Merrifield’s view of giving the preference to experiments on full-sized vessels.10 The British Association for the Advancement of Science (abbreviated to the British Association hereafter) was set up ‘to give a stronger impulse and more systematic direction to the objects of science, and a removal of those disadvantages which impede its progress’ in 1831.11 That was just after Charles Babbage’s fierce criticism of ‘indiscriminate admission of every candidate’ to the Royal Society was published.12 The association was a nationwide organization comprising several thousand members, including most of the leading scientists and engineers of contemporary Britain.13 In fact, in the above-mentioned Steam-ship Performance Committee made up of six members, we find William J. M. Rankine and Francis Galton.14 Both are known to have introduced scientific principle (physics and statistics respectively) for the first time into two empirical fields, mechanical engineering and genetics, both of which had been highly dependent on rule of thumb. This strongly suggests that the tank experiments dismissed by this committee of the association were far ahead of the standard of science and technology of the time. Moreover, because it used ship models, the experimental tank was the very opposite of the standard of naval architecture of the time. As indicated above, full-scale experiments were the standard method of testing ship performance in contemporary naval architecture, and this dominated even the view of the committee of a newly established innovative scientific body such as the British Association. The ship model experiments undertaken by the tank were ‘sufficiently startling to the commonplace mind, which bases its opinion upon the treacherous ground of “common sense” ’.15 And yet, the ship model experiments were more large-scale and sophisticated than the word ‘model’ might suggest, because of the need to control the experimental conditions systematically and secure the precise reproduction of an experiment under the same conditions. According to the British professional naval architect William Froude who, as mentioned in Chapter 1, developed the world’s first experimental tank, the tank required a waterway 76 metres long, 3.05 metres deep and 7.9 metres wide (maximum width). Furthermore it also required a railway and carriages, a hauling engine and governor, model-making arrangements, and precise instruments for


measurement such as a resistance dynamometer, and so on.16 According to W. Froude’s estimate, made in December 1868, the total cost of the first tank he planned and constructed at Torquay (abbreviated to the Torquay tank hereafter) amounted to £2000.17 Both in fund-raising and management, the construction of the Torquay tank was obviously beyond the resources of any one individual. This fact all the more sharpened its deviation from the standard of naval architecture of the time where there was little concept of public support for R&D specializing in systematic ship model experiments requiring such large-scale and sophisticated apparatus. In fact, even after the Royal Navy finally allowed Froude £2000 for the construction of the tank for ship model experiments on 9 February 1870, the aforementioned C. Lamport made the following remark at an INA meeting: ‘if these small experiments are useless for the practical purposes for which we, as naval architects, wish to utilize them, is it not, I put it to the meeting, throwing away the money of the nation to no purpose?’18 In contrast to many amateur inventors of the time who claimed patents ‘without having been at “paynes, costs, charges,” or “expences” in finding out and bringing their invention to perfection’, Froude as a professional naval architect reported, despite the opposition described above, a crucial experiment made by the Greyhound in 1874. The results successfully showed the observed resistance of full-scale ships accorded with that estimated from ship model experiments. Froude’s recapitulation was short and clear: ‘The experiments with the ship, when compared with those tried with her model, substantially verify the law of comparison which has been propounded by me as governing the relation between the resistance of ships and their models.’ The ‘law of comparison’ in this statement is well known today by every naval architect throughout the world as a basic law connecting the results of ship model experiments with full-scale ship design. It is also known by every naval architect today that a non-dimensional number called the Froude number (v2/gl, where v ⫽ velocity of ships, g ⫽ gravitational acceleration, and l ⫽ representative length of ships) represents this connection.19 However, despite this crucial experiment verifying the fundamentals of modern ship design presented by Froude, the situation did not significantly change for a long time. Nothing attests this more tellingly than the fact that there was no national experimental tank open to wider public use in the British shipbuilding industry until 1911, almost four decades after the Greyhound experiment (for further details, see Chapter 5). From the first pioneering tank at Torquay planned and constructed by Froude in 1872 right to up the early years of the new century, the experimental tank thus continued to be literally marginal at the leading edge of the standard of British marine technology, and therefore advanced technology in terms of the contemporary British shipbuilding industry. Exactly at that period, Japan started industrialization as a latecomer, and quite coincidentally, transferred the experimental tank from Britain just after the turn of the


century. In every respect, all these facts significantly indicate a far greater science and technology gap between Britain and Japan than could be expected from a commonsense understanding that the experimental tank was an accepted high technology well established in contemporary advanced naval architecture. As a symbolic example showing this, an outstanding Japanese naval architect Yuzuru Hiraga, then Vice-Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy and later President of the Imperial University of Tokyo, stated as follows as late as 1934 at a meeting of the INA: The pioneer work which William Froude carried out on resistance and propulsion has been studied carefully in my country. We have accepted it as sound. I am ready to affirm that, on the principle he established, many Japanese warships have been built which have satisfied completely the estimates of their designers … A few years ago we carried out in Japan towing experiments on ships similar to those made by Froude on the Greyhound … they do show that Froude’s system is satisfactory.20 Hiraga’s intention at this time was to add a small corroboration on skin friction correction to the results gained from the crucial experiment made by the Greyhound in 1874. Yet this state of research in 1934 makes it very clear that ship model experiments could still produce the latest results for the research front of naval architecture at the time. This state in 1934 makes it quite natural to infer that in the first transfer of the experimental tank to Japan made nearly thirty years earlier, the state was as if a student just admitted to an undergraduate course was faced with learning the latest research. What then was the actual situation? And how did Japan handle this enormous science and technology gap at the time of the transfer?

The role of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard In 1902, F. P. Purvis, an Englishman who had worked as an assistant to W. Froude and who came to Japan as a foreign teacher employed by the Imperial University, made the following statement at the 6th annual meeting of the Shipbuilding Association (Zosen Kyokai): The question may well be asked whether it is not possible to get on perfectly well without a tank: this question in various forms has been put again and again and applied to the design both of warships and merchantmen. The answer is perhaps best supplied in the case of warships by pointing to the list of countries the Admiralties of which have established their own experimental tank. With the exception of Germany and Japan all the leading naval powers have taken this step … An extension policy in Japan is at the present under consideration; is it not then worth spending a minute proportion of the cost of that extension policy for the sake of the advantages that may be obtained?21


As far as we are able to confirm, this is the first public mention of the experimental tank in Japan. According to Purvis, by ‘advantages’ was meant determination of the form with the least resistance and necessary horsepower required for a ship of a certain size, speed and weight and building a ship to such specifications. His estimate of the ‘cost’ was 123,910 yen, or 103,000 yen when discounted.22 The first such tank was W. Froude’s Torquay tank, built in 1872. Thirty years had passed when Purvis introduced the idea of the tank to Japan. This lapse in time, however, is deceiving. The Torquay tank was built for a preliminary study for the Royal Navy and was ‘temporary’ in Purvis’ words. More than that, there was little support for the experimental tank at the time, because of the poor understanding of its effectiveness as explained above.23 On the international scene as well, it was not until 1886, when Robert E. Froude, the third son of W. Froude, moved the Torquay tank to Haslar near Portsmouth, that other industrial societies began to adopt the experimental tank. Between 1888 and 1905, leading Western countries such as Italy, Russia, Germany, the US and France started building experimental tanks of their own. It thus took more than ten years after confirming its effectiveness even for Western countries other than Britain to adopt the experimental tank developed by W. Froude. It was towards the end of this period that F. P. Purvis introduced the idea of the experimental tank to Japan. At this rather later phase, therefore, it is inconceivable that the Japanese concerned were unaware of this progress in the adoption of the experimental tank by many Western countries. As a matter of fact, at a discussion of Purvis’ paper, H. Fujishima immediately registered his approval with the following remark: ‘The value and necessity of such a tank as he proposes are beyond question.’24 Does this contemporaneity then accurately indicate the level of Japanese naval architecture at the time of the adoption of the tank? Or, is estimating the time lag in the adoption of the tank in this manner fooling us? A key to resolving this issue is how the technology gatekeepers, in the first instance Mitsubishi, took part in this transfer. Mitsubishi completed construction of Japan’s first experimental tank (known as the Senkei Shiken Ba, on which construction work started in January 1907) in May 1908, six years after Purvis read his paper. And Shintaro Motora, who later became the director of the Experimental Tank Unit of the shipyard, published a paper in 1916 concerning a model propeller test in the official journal of the Shipbuilding Association.25 This provides a good lead to probe the level of contemporary Japanese naval architecture, because this was the first published paper based on experimental tank tests made in Japan. Motora’s paper starts with a confirmation, through a dimensional analysis, of the suitability of the basic equation concerning the actions of the propellers. Based on this, the coefficients of the basic equation which decide thrust and turning moment in each case are specified and the two figures showing the propulsion efficiency of the propellers are drawn.26 One figure


shows the relationship between the propellers’ revolutions and their propulsion efficiency, and the other shows the relationship between the diameter and propulsion efficiency. Motora used these two figures based on model tests made at the Mitsubishi tank to reanalyse the model propeller test data obtained by R. E. Froude and D. W. Taylor. He then considered what combination of propeller size and revolutions would provide the maximum propulsion efficiency for a full-scale ship, as well as the appropriate shape for the propellers (pitch ratio, area ratio, thickness, and so on). It is difficult to arrive at a general determination of propeller performance theoretically. On the other hand, the results of a model propeller test conducted by an experimental tank cannot be used for full-scale ships as there are too many parameters to be corrected. The propeller performance curve studied at that time therefore lacked sufficient specification, as the numerical solution for the curve was yet to be developed. Under these circumstances, Motora developed his own analytical tool mentioned above to get useful information for full-scale ship design from model test data. It is true that his work was based on advanced research in Europe and the US, but what he did was more than just to accept their results (Motora won the Miyoshi Scholarship Prize for this study on propellers). This was in 1916, only eight years after the transfer of the experimental tank to Mitsubishi which took place nearly simultaneously with its adoption by leading Western countries other than Britain. This might suggest that the science and technology level of Japan at the time was considerable as far as the assimilation of the results of experimental tank tests is concerned.27 Rather than the decades claimed by Hiroshige, there is a possibility that at the time Japan’s naval architecture was behind the West by a time lag of around ten years at the most.28 The above suggestion leads us to infer that Japan had already attained a considerable level of naval architecture also in assimilating the experimental tank itself when it was transferred for the first time to Mitsubishi from Britain in 1908. Events at Mitsubishi will show whether this inference can be accepted. The transfer of the experimental tank to Mitsubishi started about 1905 with Hidemi Maruta, then deputy head of the shipyard, instrumental in bringing it about.29 Since this was still within the period during which the experimental tank was being adopted by Western countries other than Britain, Mitsubishi’s transfer was quite early. In fact, this transfer of the experimental tank to Mitsubishi was the first to a private shipyard in the non-Western world. But Mitsubishi did not make the transfer unaided. There was an agent on the British side which gave guidance at the time of the transfer. The agent was W. Denny & Brothers, which had built the first experimental tank for a private shipbuilder in Britain in 1882 following instruction and/or design by W. Froude. Prior to the transfer of the tank, Mitsubishi sent two engineers to Denny & Brothers to receive technical instruction: Goro Kawahara was sent in November 1905 and Koshiro Shiba in September 1907.30


Each stayed in Britain for about one year and studied assiduously. In Shiba’s words, ‘They taught us everything step by step. Not only the machine operations but also the materials used for the propellers, as well as how the propellers are cut.’31 One month after Shiba’s return to Japan, Alexander Morris, an engineer of Denny & Brothers was employed by Mitsubishi to give instruction for a period of one year and four months on the operation of the experimental tank and to supervise and give guidance on the assembly and installation of the measurement devices.32 In addition to this, one set of precise measurement devices (main rail, power measurement stand, propeller stand, model moulding machine, and so on) designed by Kelso Company of Glasgow and adopted by Denny & Brothers was also imported (Kelso himself came to Japan in November 1907 to give guidance and stayed for half a year).33 It can be seen from these facts that the transfer was carried out literally ‘step by step’ and how faithfully the first experimental tank in Japan followed the British original. What, then, were the results of the experiment? It was a complete failure. In Motora’s words, ‘We had failed badly. The worst part of all was the railway’.34 What kind of failure was involved? Figure 2.1 shows the results of a ship model test on the first day of the experiment (5 May 1908) and on the second day (6 May), as recorded in the test log. By ‘Model 1’ at the upper left is meant the No. 1 ship model while the first column of numbers shows the measurement trials.35 From this, it can be seen that 18 test data were obtained for the same model on two consecutive days. Of these, the ‘Scale of Spring’ for the measurements 1, 4, 6, 9, and 14 shows constants, the resistance of the springs employed (‘13WG’ and ‘14WG’ are two kinds of spring). The number of actual data is therefore 13. The second column of figures shows the speed of the ship model (in feet per minute), while the third column shows the resistance (in pounds). The table in Figure 2.1 thus shows the change in resistance in relation to change in speed. What is significant is that it records only one (measurement trial 5) or two (measurement trial 7 and 8) results obtained using the same spring, suggesting very strongly that large numbers of invalid measurements were made. This clearly shows how difficult it was to obtain valid data through carrying out numerous tests with the same measurement system. From every viewpoint, this could not be regarded as a systematic test. It is fairly clear from the table in Figure 2.1 that a quite inadequate number of valid and a huge number of invalid measurements were made. The cause was, as Motora pointed out, the lack of accuracy in installing the ‘railway’. The entire railway was dismantled and corrected over a period of two months during November and December 1908. It was a radical reconstruction.36 There was a large science and technology gap, much larger than Motora’s paper published eight years later suggests during this initial stage of the transfer and the Japanese side was hard put to successfully adopt the experimental tank. This initial failure suggests, at the same time, that the

36

Figure 2.1 First test records of the experimental tank in Japan Source: K. Taniguchi, ‘Historical review of research and development in ship hydrodynamics’, paper presented at the 75th Anniversary of Nagasaki Experimental Tank 1907–1983, May (1983).


science and technology gap was decreased within a short time by learning and the experimental tank became a useful tool for writing papers as Motora did on the basis of the accumulated learning experience. When Motora’s paper appeared in 1916, more than 200 ship models had already been tested.37 What then was the situation during the period between 1908 and 1916? Analysing the ship model tests carried out between 1908 and 1916, we can discern at least three stages of learning. First, there were tests to ascertain the precision of measurement instruments. Second, the results of ship model tests were compared with those of full-scale ship tests. And finally, the optimal hull design with the least wave resistance was determined based on ship model tests. It was not until 1913 that the learning proceeded on to the third stage and it was only in this stage that the primary purpose of the experimental tank could be substantially achieved. From 1908 to 1912, every test using the experimental tank at Mitsubishi was within the first and the second stages of learning, both of which were focused on preliminary tests for ascertaining the performance of the tank itself rather than any utilization of the results for actual hull design.38 The fact that ship model tests during this period were carried out after the construction work on full-scale ships had already started clearly proves this point (see Table 2.1). By spending all this time remedying the initial failure and on this subsequent careful preliminary examination of the tank, Mitsubishi gained hands-on experience and finally got to the stage where the experimental tank could be fully used as an R&D apparatus for optimal hull design. Motora’s paper in 1916 was the first result of this three-stage learning after the transfer. In light of the technology gatekeeper model formulated in Chapter 1, these behaviour patterns of Mitsubishi as technology gatekeepers lacked the function of selection and assimilation mechanisms since a single exemplar was transferred without alteration. On the other hand, we can find one other characteristic feature of technology gatekeepers (controlling the timing of transfer) in its effort to carry out the first transfer of the tank to Japan and make arrangements for its initial assimilation which made this three-stage learning possible. Both of these features required serious risktaking by Mitsubishi, since the experimental tank contained unknown elements in its first transfer to Mitsubishi to such an extent as to cause the devastating initial failure due to the huge science and technology gap. Despite this enormous gap, Mitsubishi spent a large amount of initial cost, amounting to more than 150,000 yen at the prevailing prices, to construct the tank in June 1908.39 Since on 22 April of the same year Mitsubishi built the first merchant turbine-driven ship in Japan, the Tenyomaru, it is probable that the tank construction was based on advance consideration of the future requirements for reliable tests of turbine ship design. With the increased vessel size and speed made possible by the marine turbine, reliable tests particularly for resistance and estimation of needed horsepower became increasingly necessary.

38 Table 2.1 Dates of model ship experiments and full-scale ship construction at Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, 1908–12 Model no.

Ship name/orderer

2

Mogami/Navy

3

Sakuramaru/ Marine Association Nikkomaru/ Nippon Yusen Co. Kamomaru/ Nippon Yusen Co. Umegakamaru/ Marine Association Tenyomaru/ Toyo Kisen Co. Panamamaru/ Osaka Shosen Co. Kiyomaru/ Toyo Kisen Co. Awamaru/ Nippon Yusen Co. Tangomaru/ Nippon Yusen Co. Taikyomaru/ Osaka Shosen Co. Yahagi/Navy

6 8 9 10 11 19 24 26 38 45 46 47 48 55 61 63 72 81 107 110

Eiho/ Chinese Navy Yamakaze/Navy Yokohamamaru/ Nippon Yusen Co. Mejimamaru/ Yamanobe Shokai Co. Tsuruemaru/ Kisen Gyogyo Co. Launch/ Russian Navy Anyomaru/ Toyo Kisen Co. Katorimaru/ Nippon Yusen Co. Fushimimaru/ Nippon Yusen Co. Kirishima/Navy

Date of experiment 5.5.1908 (Start) 25.5.1908 (Finish) 25.6.1908 3.6.1909 19.1.1909 8.2.1909 8.3.1909 19.10.1909 28.4.1909 5.6.1909 30.6.1909 14.12.1909 10.6.1909 19.11.1910 1.10.1909 — 24.12.1909 27.12.1909 5.2.1910 20.2.1910 31.10.1910 6.4.1911 17.10.1910 14.12.1912 9.12.1910 16.12.1911 1.12.1910 24.5.1912 11.12.1910 27.6.1912 6.2.1911 15.4.1911 8.2.1911 10.2.1911 15.2.1911 2.3.1911 21.8.1911 4.5.1912 15.4.1912 29.11.1912 23.9.1912 26.9.1912 19.12.1912 26.12.1912

Date of construction 11.12.1905 (Start) 29.7.1908 (Finish) 9.7.1906 9.10.1908 11.4.1902 26.12.1903 10.6.1906 10.7.1908 29.12.1907 6.7.1909 23.6.1905 22.4.1908 28.5.1907 30.4.1910 12.6.1907 11.10.1910 28.6.1897 14.11.1899 8.6.1902 22.4.1905 6.4.1904 9.6.1905 12.10.1909 27.7.1912 13.12.1910 9.1.1913 11.9.1909 21.10.1911 25.10.1910 14.5.1912 15.6.1910 29.12.1910 25.6.1910 29.12.1910 28.1.1911 9.7.1911 9.9.1911 3.6.1913 5.11.1911 11.9.1913 28.10.1912 23.11.1913 14.7.1911 19.4.1915

Source: Based on Mitsubishi Jukogyo Nagasaki Kenkyujo Gijutsu Hokoku (Internal Technical report of the Nagasaki Research Institute of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Co., referred to hereafter as Gijutsu Report), No. 33 (1968), pp. 101–102.


Within the context of this connection of the experimental tank with turbine ships, the construction of the tank at this particular time, when turbine ships began to appear, might be technically rational. However, what is technically rational in this sense did not necessarily mean rational patterns of behaviour when we broaden our perspective to embrace the surrounding social context. Two factors prove this. First, even if Mitsubishi’s construction of the tank was technically rational in the above sense, this does not mean that the behaviour of Mitsubishi was based on expected utility, because the construction work of the tank was started after the start of the construction of the Tenyomaru. If the decision by Mitsubishi to construct the tank had been made based on the expected use in determining optimal hull design for the first merchant turbine ship in Japan, the tank would have had to have been constructed before the start of the construction of the Tenyomaru. The fact is that construction work on the tank started in January 1907, while that on the Tenyomaru began in June 1906. Even if we ignore the physical problems due to the complete failure of the initial experiment made by the tank, Mitsubishi’s behaviour was far from rational in that they could not expect its construction would bring immediate practical return on investment. It is rather natural to take Mitsubishi’s behaviour as suggesting an innovative type of decision made within a longterm perspective and one which involved running the risk of a huge initial investment and initial failure. A further look at apparatus installed at the tank makes this interpretation more plausible. The experimental tank means nothing without a full installation of precision instruments. For example, the construction of the Mitsubishi tank started with installation of resistance dynamometers, propeller dynamometers, propeller after-flow testers, wave breaking equipment, model cutting machines, and power generators.40 This installation naturally involved a huge additional cost. According to the Annual Report of Mitsubishi, the total initial expenditure during the period from the beginning to the completion of the tank, including that for the above apparatus amounted to an enormous 252,522.03 yen.41 This indicates a huge risk for Mitsubishi since expenditure on the tank in the year of its completion alone amounted to no less than 1.3 per cent of total sales for the same year. (For comparison, the present-day total R&D expenditure of Japanese companies is about 3.01 per cent of their total sales on average.)42 Second, we cannot dismiss a different sort of cost, that associated with new institutional arrangements for assimilating the tank within the company organization. With the construction of the experimental tank, the company’s organization was first formally defined in October 1908, five months after construction was completed. The Experimental Tank Unit was put under the control of the shipbuilding design engineer.43 It should be noted here that this meant the creation of a discrete body for R&D having well-defined sub-roles of its own within the company organization rather

40 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace Table 2.2 The composition of the Experimental Tank Unit, Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Sub-roles: Year 1908 1912 1917

Engineers

Technicians

Others

Foreigners

Total

1 0 3

3 5 0

9 6 9

1 0 0

14 11 12

Note: ‘Engineers’ and ‘Technicians’ include assistant engineers and technicians respectively. ‘Others’ include technical workers, clerks, trainee workers, draughtsmen, mechanics, carpenters, and female workers. Source: Based on Gijutsu Report, No. 33 (1968), pp. 25–32.

than a small organizational revision such as appending a test room subordinate to the shipbuilding shops. The composition of the Experimental Tank Unit demonstrates this clearly (see Table 2.2). As Table 2.2 shows, within the unit itself there were well-defined sub-roles from the start and particularly the creation of the unit required the differentiation of engineers and technicians from others. The fulfilment of these new sub-roles in turn needed new human resources, professionally trained in naval architecture. In fact, all except three of the total of 12 engineers and technicians listed in the table, including the above-mentioned Shiba and Kawahara, were recruited from among the graduates of the Shipbuilding Department of the Imperial University of Tokyo. One of the exceptions was Nagakata Yamamoto who was a graduate of the University of Glasgow and entered Mitsubishi in 1896. The other two were Shigehiko Kido, a graduate of the Mitsubishi Preparatory School of Industry (Mitsubishi Kogyo Yobi Gakko) set up by the company in 1899 who was transferred from the shipbuilding design section to the Experimental Tank Unit in 1909, and Saburo Takeshita, a graduate of that school who entered the unit as a draughtman in 1908 and became a technician in 1912.44 And the Shipbuilding Department of the Imperial University of Tokyo which fostered most of the leading employees of the unit was an offspring of the Engineering College originally set up in 1873.45 The department was set up in 1886, providing engineering education within a university earlier than in many Western countries. Thus the innovative entrepreneurial behaviour of Mitsubishi in taking the bold risk of investing in the experimental tank, together with the availability at a relatively early date of professional naval architects produced by engineering education at Japanese universities, worked in favour of the first transfer of the tank from Britain. The story of Mitsubishi’s transfer could be seen as a significantly positive role, a sort of entrepreneurship, which was exhibited with the assistance of professional naval architects then already becoming available. Yet when trying to fully explain this transfer in terms of


technology gatekeepers, a different but equally important problem arises far beyond the Mitsubishi story. While the transfer of the experimental tank was made about the same time as that to various Western countries, the fact that the transfer was carried out without making a selection from multiple exemplars seems to be quite unnatural in light of the technology gatekeeper model. Thus, the question is whether this behaviour of Mitsubishi is a full explanation of the transfer mechanism of the latest high technology of the day. The behaviour of the Imperial Japanese Navy holds the key to answering this question.

The role of the Imperial Japanese Navy It was in May 1908, the same year and the same month as Mitsubishi completed its experimental tank that the Imperial Japanese Navy completed its own tank. The Navy’s construction work (at Tsukiji in Tokyo) was also started at the same time as Mitsubishi’s, in January 1907. So then was there really any difference in the behaviour of the Navy from that of Mitsubishi? The public record reporting the establishment of the first Navy tank is the History of the Naval Institutions (Kaigun Seido Enkaku) prepared by the Naval Ministry. This states that ‘On 1 February 1909, the Technical Headquarters of the Navy [Kaigun Kansei Honbu] started up the experimental tank at Tsukiji and carried out a test on the speed of ships, using a ship model’.46 The startup was carried out based on Imperial Ordinance No. 317, Naval Experimental Tank Act of 24 December 1908. Thus, about six months after the construction of the experimental tank, it became incorporated into a R&D organization within the Navy. Considering that the type of apparatus installed (for example, power meter stand), which was transferred prior to the above order, was the same type as that adopted by the Royal Navy,47 it might appear to be difficult to find any difference in behaviour from Mitsubishi which also transferred the British type without alteration. This chapter argues that there was a significant difference because in 1906, two years before the transfer, the Navy took a course of action clearly different from that of Mitsubishi that the above public record does not mention. The key to understanding this action lies in the ‘Report of Personnel Stationed Overseas’ (Gaikoku Chuzaiin Hokoku) prepared by the chief naval architect of the Navy, Yoichi Inagawa who was then in Britain.48 When we take a closer look at this report, in what way did the Navy’s behaviour differ significantly from Mitsubishi’s? The chief naval architect Inagawa submitted this report on 26 November 1906, about two months before the start of construction work on the Navy tank. The title of the report is ‘On the Experimental Tank’, no. 169 of reports from personnel stationed overseas. Since the seal of the appropriate sections (the 3rd and 4th sections) of the Technical Headquarters of the Navy was put to the report, it is certain that the Technical Headquarters of the Navy which

42 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace Table 2.3 Report from personnel stationed overseas, by the Chief Naval Architect, Yoichi Inagawa, ‘On the Experimental Tank’ Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7

The Need for the Experimental Tank The Background of the Experimental Tank The Specifications to be Adopted for the Navy Tank The Selection of Main Instruments and Equipment Rolling Platform and its Motive Power Materials for Models Conclusion

Source: Kaigun Daijin Kanbo Kiroku Ko (Record Office of the Secretary to the Navy Minister), ‘Meiji 39 Nen Gaikoku Chuzaiin Hokoku’ (Reports from personnel stationed overseas, 1906), vol. 2 (abbreviated to Inagawa Report hereafter).

later controlled the Navy tank was aware of its contents before the tank construction was started. What did this report, submitted at this critical moment, make the Navy aware of? Table 2.3 gives its outline. As the table shows, the report is arranged very systematically. It starts with the need for the experimental tank (Chapter 1) and gives background information (Chapter 2), the size (Chapter 3), the main equipment (Chapter 4), the resistance power meter and motive power (Chapter 5), materials of ship models (Chapter 6) and the conclusion (Chapter 7). In particular, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 are remarkable, because here we can clearly find the Navy’s own decisions on how to select and what to employ, which definitely indicate that it did not merely introduce the experimental tank from abroad without any input of its own. In other words, we find here the role of selection mechanisms expected from the function of technology gatekeepers, the role that Mitsubishi’s behaviour lacked. We will now focus on Chapter 2, the introduction of the overall report, and Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 to elucidate the remaining function of technology gatekeepers that the Navy’s behaviour enables us to understand. Chapter 2 outlines the situation of the experimental tank internationally at that time. This is not an ordinary outline simply reporting the results of learning from the West. Instead it places an extremely clear focus on one particular problem: ‘The question is if we were to design this in Japan then what should we introduce from abroad and what should we make in our country?’49 From the very beginning of the report, there is thus no glorification of learning from abroad. With the above focus, it estimated the level of marine technology of Japan and that of the West, and attempted to determine the items to be imported from the West in the transfer of the experimental tank. Table 2.4 shows the report’s division between imports and domestic production for the transfer.50 As the table shows, the report presented a clear policy to design and produce within Japan all the infrastructure-related facilities and equipment (power system, workshop, drawing room) and to depend on overseas suppliers for the

The Technology Gatekeepers 43 Table 2.4 Division between imports and domestic production (A) Instruments and equipment to be purchased from abroad (a) Model shaping machine (b) Screw propeller testing apparatus (c) Resistance dynamometer (d) Sectional paper ruling machine (e) Driving gear for recording mechanism (f) Main carriage or rolling platform (g) Complete switch room equipment (B) Items to be produced in Japan (a) All buildings and concrete tank (b) Motive power plant (c) Small workshop equipment (d) Drawing office equipment (e) All necessary drawings (f) Sundry small items Source: Inagawa Report.

Table 2.5 Comparison table for the dimensions of the experimental tanks Country Britain, Navy Britain, Denny & Co. Britain, John Brown & Co. Italy, La Spezia Russia, St Petersburg Germany, Bremerhaven US, Washington France, Paris Japan, Mitsubishi

Width 20’ 21’ 20’ 20’ 24’ 20’ 42’8” 32’8” 20’

Length

Depth

Price (£)

400’ 300’ 400’ 500’ 400’ 550’ 470’ 525’ 400’

8’–9’ 8’–9’ 8’–9’ 10’ 11’ 10’ 14’8” 13’ 10’

16,000 — — 25,000 — 9,000 — 21,000 —

Note: Dimensions are given in feet and inches. Price is only for the structure and the measurement instruments. The price for the La Spezia tank in Italy includes the power system. Source: Inagawa Report.

main unit and the precision equipment for the unit only. The next focus then, in Chapter 3, was on the nature and extent of this foreign dependence. Chapter 3 examined the major experimental tanks in the West and considered what type the Imperial Japanese Navy should adopt. Here, both the dimensions of contemporary experimental tanks in Western countries and their costs (partial) are examined carefully (see Table 2.5). As the table shows, the examination also covered the dimensions of the Mitsubishi tank. This means that a number of prior inquiries were deliberately made by the Navy before procuring one exemplar, while prior inquiries of this sort were absent in Mitsubishi’s transfer. It also means that the Navy had monitored


Mitsubishi’s behaviour before deciding on the type of the tank to be transferred. In contrast, as seen earlier, Mitsubishi’s transfer was entirely based on learning from a single British shipyard without any equivalent attention to the Navy’s behaviour before and during the transfer. In this respect, the perspectives informing the behaviours of these two technology gatekeepers in the transfer were quite asymmetrical. What is noteworthy about this prior inquiry is that the Navy paid particular attention to the Washington tank of the US Navy (built in 1898) and the Paris tank of the French Navy (built in 1905), and examined their characteristics very carefully. Both were the latest type and had in common the salient characteristic of being 1.5 to 2 times wider than conventional tanks. It is normal to pay attention to the latest types, and this attitude must have been all the more natural for the military sector that was then keen to transfer leading-edge technology. The result of the investigation described in the above report was, however, the very opposite of what might be expected given the normal tendency to favour the latest type of technology. The report stated ‘The necessity of these latest types must be questioned’51 – what was the reason? The wide tank makes it possible to carry out tests with a large-size model at high speed, but the point of experimental tank tests consists in accuracy.52 The accuracy here indicates the degree of accordance of data obtained from ship model experiments with those obtained from full-scale ship experiments. The better the accuracy, the more useful the tank is for full-scale ship design. Accordingly, the question is how accurate the tests could be. It is stated that the margin of error of experiments using the wide tank ‘is no less than one per cent’.53 When the largest model (approximately 14 feet in length) with a maximum speed of approximately 12 knots was tested using conventional tanks, the expected error was on the order of 1/300 to 1/1,000.54 Therefore it follows that there was no advantage in using a wide tank, rather the reverse. Based upon these estimates, the report reached the following conclusion: ‘A small tank is more reasonable than the latest large ones since the basic principle governing the experimental tank is to estimate the quality of the larger based on that of the smaller’.55 Following this conclusion, the experimental tank finally decided on was modelled on the conventional Haslar tank of the Royal Navy, which had a width of 20 feet, a length of 450 to 500 feet and a depth of 10 to 12 feet. Thus the report developed strong grounds of its own for this selection after due reflection upon the essentials of the tank experiments, strong enough for us to observe here the selection mechanism function expected of technology gatekeepers that Mitsubishi’s behaviour lacked. And the reason for selection given by this Navy report was, as seen above, totally independent of the prior connection between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Royal Navy, which had been promoted by a switch from French to British systems in ship design during the 1880s.56


In fact, this thoroughness in considering alternatives penetrated even to the selection of the British instrument manufacturers for the tank construction. The selection of the main type of equipment treated in Chapter 4 of the report makes this point clear. The chapter begins by listing the two leading makers for the main equipment. One was Munro, the other was Kelso.57 Then Munro and Kelso equipment were compared with respect to (1) the model shaping machine, (2) the resistance dynamometer, and (3) the screw propeller testing machine. The result of this comparison was that ‘the two types have almost the same performance, with trivial differences in details.’ Here, the chapter further focused on the question of the performance of the four-blade screw propeller that was about to appear at the time. It states: In the Kelso type the equipment for quadrantal screw testing is still not being planned … In the Munro type the equipment for quadrantal screw testing will be completed within two or three months … Whether the Imperial Japanese Navy should employ the quadrantal screw is presently still being studied. But at least for now, the cost for its testing must be provided.58 It therefore concluded that the Munro type was more desirable for employment by the Navy. Of course it confirmed beforehand that the main performance of the Munro type was equal to that of the Kelso type. However, with the Munro equipment there was the possibility, if the Navy should so desire in the future, of testing the performance of the four-blade screw propeller, which was an unknown quantity at the time. For this reason, the report dared to discard the Kelso type employed by the Mitsubishi tank and recommend the rival Munro type. In addition, this selection was founded on a wider perspective which encompassed advantages beyond those in the Navy’s report, which states: ‘The Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard’s selection of the Kelso type was based merely on its low cost and their prior connection with Denny & Company. In view of these reasons for their decision, it would be for the benefit of Japan to adopt different types simultaneously.’59 This statement further corroborates how closely the behaviour of Mitsubishi had been informally monitored by the Navy. It also proves that the Navy’s decision was made based on a preoccupation with how ‘advantageous’ its behaviour could be to the whole national interest. As the Kelso type had already been transferred to Japan, employing the different Munro type could decrease the risk associated with a new unfamiliar component technology to be transferred together with the tank. At the same time, when these two different types were transferred simultaneously their performance could be compared after the transfer, on the basis of which improvements could be sought for the future. What this judgement implied was thus a very careful prior inquiry, and rational behaviour, taking into account the relative advantages of different types of technology.60


This Navy approach, as far as the selection of Western science and technology at this time is concerned, may provide an example of a functional equivalent of a national science and technology policy in Japan whose full-scale implementation can be seen only after the First World War. As a matter of fact, we can confirm that when construction of the tank was started two months later the advice in the report was followed in every detail. The component technology adopted was the Munro type, the tank adopted was an ordinary conventional type with a length of 137.00 metres, a width of 6.10 metres and a depth of 3.65 metres, whose dimensions were quite similar to the Haslar tank of the Royal Navy strongly recommended by the report.61 Thus the selection mechanism function expected of gatekeepers that was missing from Mitsubishi’s behaviour was operating in that of the Navy. This function represented by the Navy’s behaviour can be seen as rational in the sense that a careful prior investigation of the multiple types and the resultant selection of an alternative to the type adopted by Mitsubishi enabled Japanese shipbuilding to reduce the risk of reckless specialization in a single type. Since there was an uncertainty associated with this latest high technology at the leading edge of contemporary naval architecture, the Navy’s course of action was well enough thought out for Japan to handle the transfer despite a huge initial science and technology gap. One might suppose that the Navy’s thoroughness in examining alternatives was natural since it was a department prescribed by the government to seek anything helpful for the national interest in terms of national defence. However, the rational behaviour described and analysed here was much subtler than could be imagined based on such a formal understanding of the governmental administration. There are two reasons for this. First, since no Navy Minister of the Meiji period was a civilian and the Minister was virtually responsible to the Emperor alone rather than parliament, there was little institutional arrangement for preventing the Navy from seeking its own particular interests rather than those of the wider nation. In fact, there was no Parliamentary Vice-Minister of the Navy (Sanseikan, later Kaigun Seimu Jikan) until the First World War, when the post itself was created by Imperial Ordinance No. 212 of 5 October 1914, although it remained vacant until July 1915.62 Despite this rather primitive institutional arrangement, the rational technology selection made by the Navy, giving top priority to Japan’s national interest in 1906, strongly suggests that it represented a technology gatekeeper functionally equivalent to a national science and technology policy maker in this particular case. Second, and more importantly, the tactical behaviour of the Navy could not become rational without the prior risk-taking (in a sense non-rational) behaviour of Mitsubishi which reminds us of entrepreneurship, because the latter’s conduct provided an indispensable empirical basis to which the Navy could look for a possible rational course of action. In other words, Mitsubishi’s behaviour provided a test case that enabled the Navy to evaluate


its implications for the national interest and adjust its subsequent behaviour so as to lead to a rational technology selection at the whole national level. When looking at the uncertainty associated with the transfer of the latest advanced technologies, the Navy’s well-balanced attitude in promoting the national interest made Mitsubishi’s opposite risk-taking behaviour very valuable. Because of such an uncertain situation it must have been extremely difficult for the Navy to define straightforwardly what the national interest was without the observation of prior trials. And Mitsubishi’s independent behaviour was an unintended but effective trial in testing the water of this uncertain situation, and making the boundary of national interest more visible, and providing a direction in which the Navy’s behaviour should be guided in seeking the national interest. The courses followed by the Navy and Mitsubishi were certainly formally independent, but due to the asymmetrical monitoring of Mitsubishi’s behaviour by the Navy their roles as technology gatekeepers were thus able to be highly complementary in this process of transfer. This strongly indicates that their behaviour should be taken together as those of functionally combined technology gatekeepers making up the overall institutional structure in the technology transfer. Rational and non-rational behaviour, developed by the public and private sectors respectively, combined to make possible the transfer of a high technology of the day produced by the leading edge of contemporary naval architecture. And the functionally combined behaviour of these two different sectors has profound implications for the sociological reconsideration of Japanese industrialization, profound enough to go far beyond the long-standing and prevailing stereotype of the government-directed industrialization and its revised versions. Discussion of the implications follows.

Conclusion The process of the transfer of marine technology from Britain to Japan at the turn of the century, explored with particular focus on the experimental tank, manifests the following mechanisms working in the process: 1. A single type of experimental tank was transferred without selection from among alternatives through the innovative risk-taking behaviour of Mitsubishi at an early date. And the Experimental Tank Unit was created within the company as an R&D organization with a huge initial investment. However, the science and technology gap was so large that the first tank experiment was a complete failure. As the staff, who had received training at the Shipbuilding Department of the Imperial University of Tokyo, gained learning experience the huge science and technology gap rapidly declined.


2. At practically the same time, an experimental tank of a different type was transferred to the Navy, based upon very careful and thorough prior inquiry, and evaluation and selection from among multiple types, features which Mitsubishi’s behaviour lacked. That tank was authorized within the Navy’s R&D organization by an Imperial Ordinance, and put under the control of the Technical Headquarters of the Navy. 3. Both Mitsubishi and the Navy played the role of technology gatekeepers in a complementary manner, which taken together properly fulfilled every function of a gatekeeper in the transfer of the tank. However, there was no formal agreement made in advance between the two about how they were to behave. Although both in this sense took their own independent decisions, the Navy was fully aware of the behaviour of Mitsubishi but not vice versa. Thus the Navy effectively decided on its own behaviour in the context of rationally making a judgement on a wider national level. In this respect, the Navy took the initiative on an informal basis. Rather than through administrative guidance (gyosei shido) as seen today in Japan, the transfer of marine science and technology was made through two different agents independent of each other, Mitsubishi and the Navy, which played complementary roles to provide all the functions expected of technology gatekeepers. Mitsubishi functioned to control the timing of the transfer so as to make it adventurously early and to arrange for its initial assimilation by daring risk-taking. The Navy, on the other hand, functioned to make a technology selection based on a thorough prior inquiry made within a wider flexible perspective on national interest. Japanese industrialization through the transfer of Western science and technology, particularly in the case of the experimental tank, was thus carried out neither through government guidance nor through civilian guidance. Its transfer informally combined the public and the private sectors simultaneously.63 It is true that the experimental tank provides only one example. However, this composite structure has profound implications which are not restricted to a single case but relevant to the nature of technology gatekeepers in peacetime and wartime. First, the industrialization process of Japan, which has been apt to be taken as government-directed particularly in the transfer of Western science and technology, should be re-examined and corrected through a consideration of cases, including ones for R&D of dual-use technologies, where private companies took the initiative.64 As a suggestive example, Mitsubishi’s daring initial investment in order to create R&D organizations exemplified by the Experimental Tank Unit enabled the shipyard to prepare itself quite early to adapt to the ship revolution. This fact is noteworthy, particularly because it is the popular view that Japan started to implement full-scale policies for R&D in connection with the wartime mobilization of science


and technology during the First World War.65 It is true that concern that a great variety of items and materials might become impossible to import in the course of a total war spurred the government to encourage R&D of import-substitutes through its wartime mobilization of science and technology. However, the creation of the Experimental Tank Unit by Mitsubishi significantly suggests that a private company set up an R&D organization before the wartime mobilization and was motivated by intrinsic incentives to produce its own arrangements for assimilating the ship revolution rather than by the external factor of the war.66 Secondly, a more elaborate model of the role played by the technology gatekeepers throughout both peacetime and wartime should be set up, based on further intensive case studies as concerns the interaction of dual-use technologies and Japanese society. Without systematically confirming and elaborating the composite structure by other independent cases, the study of this overall informal institutional structure made up of the technology gatekeepers will lack a methodology for generalization beyond the social context peculiar to the experimental tank. This systematic confirmation and elaboration is also vital because the lack of a detailed study of different independent cases, carefully examining other related factors, would make such a model less reliable.67 This chapter is a first but indispensable step towards a fresh sociological reconsideration of latecomers’ industrialization, based on the detailed description and analysis of the role played by technology gatekeepers which enabled us to demonstrate the irrelevance of the long-standing general stereotype of government-directed industrialization in Japan and, far beyond that, to see the relevance of the composite informal institutional structure made up of the technology gatekeepers. How then can one more explicitly define this overall institutional structure made up of the gatekeepers? In answer to this question the results of further independent and systematic case studies of the ship revolution and its relationship to the technology gatekeepers will be presented in Chapter 3.

3 Technology Gatekeepers Combine: The Emergence of the Japanese Military-Industrial-University Complex

The composite structure outlined in Chapter 2 under which a British-born marine technology was transferred to Japan has more implications than simply overturning the stereotype of government-directed industrialization and its revised versions. The composite structure has profound implications for an understanding of the emergence of the military-industrial-university complex in prewar Japan. The military-industrial-university complex here means an institutional structure made up of the governmental sector, particularly the military, the private industrial sector, and universities, mutually autonomous in their behaviours but in combination fulfilling a function of driving industrialization throughout both peacetime and wartime. Based on an independent case, this chapter provides strong empirical justification for the claim by confirming the composite structure and elaborating it to develop a prototype of the military-industrial-university complex in Japan. The independent case taken up here is the marine steam turbine, which was also transferred for the first time to Japan from the West around the turn of the century. A British engineer, Charles A. Parsons, who developed the steam turbine in 1884, also obtained a patent for the marine turbine in 1894.1 The marine turbine has several characteristics in common with the experimental tank, because of the basic fact that both were advanced technologies of the day embodying the ship revolution. First, the marine turbine was also a dual-use technology. The comparison of the date of construction of the first turbine naval vessels with that of the first merchant turbine ships clearly shows this. There was little difference in the timing of adoption between the marine turbine for military purposes and for commercial ones. The first turbine naval vessels, the two torpedo boats Cobra and Viper, were constructed in 1898, and with a time lag of only three years the first merchant turbine ship, the King Edward, was constructed in 1901, all three of which were designed and built in Britain. The situation in Japan was exactly the same: marine turbines were also adopted nearly simultaneously for military and commercial 50

Technology Gatekeepers Combine 51

purposes with a time lag of only three years as will be detailed below (the first naval vessels were built in 1905 and the first merchant turbine ships in 1908). Second, both the experimental tank and the marine turbine represented the watershed of a transition leading from a technology based on rule of thumb to one integrated into science during the ship revolution, because both could only be developed and put to work based on the principles of hydrodynamics and thermodynamics respectively. Thirdly, it was these two advanced technologies of the day that revolutionized the traditional concept of hull design and propulsion, the two cores of the modern shipbuilding that led heavy industrialization at the time. Therefore, both of these technologies directly and indirectly contributed to heavy industrialization in Britain and Japan. On the other hand, there is also a significant difference to be noted in the manner of their part in the ship revolution of the two countries, which is relevant to the detailed description and analysis of the case to be developed below. In contrast to the experimental tank, which is an apparatus for R&D occupying a separate place from the production process, the marine turbine has more direct connection with the end products of shipbuilding. To use a present-day term, it was a typical product innovation in the engine or the propulsion system (propellors and their shafts) of ships, both being intermediate products to be installed preassembled in the hulls. Accordingly, it is more liable to receive visible feedback from the different demands of the production process of shipbuilding, so that the constraints imposed by the production process on its component technologies may be greater than in the case of the experimental tank (for example, there is an upper limit on the total weight of the marine turbine, based on buoyancy, while in principle there is no such limit in the case of the experimental tank). In this sense, the marine turbine had a more direct and stricter connection with demands from the changing production process of shipbuilding of the day. Against this background, its production and installation required a higher degree of coordination of the different agents involved, without which its transfer to Japan’s shipbuilding could not have been successful. Among other things, since the total weight of the marine turbine permissible within a given buoyancy varies considerably between merchant ships and naval vessels with their heavy guns and armour, the design requirements for merchant turbines cannot be used without adaptation for naval turbines, and vice versa. During the process of the first, nearly simultaneous transfer of the naval and merchant marine turbine technology to Japan, this situation must have required far more intimate coordination of the private sector and the public sector, particularly the military, involved in the transfer, than we, accustomed to a military-industrial-university complex, might expect. What institutional structure – which combination of agents – ensured its first transfer to Japan, and how can the the composite structure observed in the case of the experimental tank be further modified from this viewpoint? Through answering


these questions by confirming and elaborating the composite structure based on this independent case, this chapter clarifies an important ground for regarding the structure as a Japanese prototype of the military-industrialuniversity complex. This chapter first gives a general description of the course of transfer of a marine turbine technology. Then follows the detailed description and analysis of the behaviour of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, two key technology gatekeepers involved in the transfer of the marine turbine, through which the composite institutional structure will be confirmed and elaborated. And the mutual relationship between these two technology gatekeepers will be further explored in connection with the role played by a university in the transfer, based on which the chapter will expand the composite structure in the military-industrial-university complex. Finally, the overall argument will be summarized and its sociological implications will be examined to show that catch-up industrialization, interpreted within the context of latecomers’ industrialization, is simplistic, and to present an alternative interpretation.

The course of the transfer of marine steam turbine technology to Japan The marine steam turbine was one of the most epoch-making product innovations in the field of marine engineering at the turn of the century. This means that its transfer at the time inevitably contained unknown or at least uncertain elements, not only for those who introduced it, but also for those who developed it, as will be detailed in Chapter 4.2 Despite these difficulties, the transfer of the marine turbine to Japan was made quite swiftly. Even reckoning from the date of its original invention by C. A. Parsons in Britain in 1894, it took only 17 years for Japan to assimilate the technology and complete a ship with a domestically produced marine turbine (the Shunyomaru) in 1911.3 From the date of the launching of the first merchant turbine ship (the King Edward) in Britain in 1901, the time lag is only ten years.4 Japan had imported the marine turbine from Britain only three years before domestic production, when the Tenyomaru, a sister ship of the Shunyomaru but with an imported marine turbine, was launched. There was hardly any difference in performance between the two (see Table 3.1). And we can also observe similarly swift transfer and domestic production of marine turbines for warships. The first sizeable naval vessel with turbines (the battle cruiser Ibuki) was completed in 1909.5 Three years later, the first battleship with a domestically produced naval turbine (the Kawachi) was completed. Reckoning from the date of its original invention by Parsons in Britain in 1894, Japan assimilated the technology for military purposes and completed a warship propelled by a domestically produced turbine with a time lag of only 18 years. When we compare the date of this domestic production with the

Technology Gatekeepers Combine 53 Table 3.1 A comparison of the performance of imported and domestically produced marine steam turbines for merchant ships

Specification Gross tons Top speed (kt) No. of shafts Maximum output (SHP) Rpm of main shaft Steam

Imported (for the Tenyomaru) 13,454 20.608 3 18,958 270 170 psi/Saturated

Domestically produced (for the Shunyomaru) 13,377 20.234 3 19,000 270 170 psi/Saturated

Note: Data of performance are based on the results of trial runs. Steam measurements were taken at the inlet of the turbines. Source: Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Gakkai Hakuyo Kikan Chosa Kenkyu Iinkai (The Research Committee of the Marine Engineering Society of Japan, abbreviated to RCMESJ hereafter) (ed.) ‘Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Joki Tabin Hen Soko’ (An unpublished manuscript of the history of marine engineering in Japan: the steam turbine), n.d., Minkan Hen, appended table 3.1.

Table 3.2 A comparison of the performance of imported and domestically produced marine steam turbines for warships

Specification Gross tons Top speed (kt) No. of shafts Maximum output (SHP) Rpm of main shaft Steam

Imported (for the Ibuki)

Domestically produced (for the Kawachi)

14,636 21.162 2 28,977 265 260 psi/Saturated

20,828 21.024 2 30,399 265 275 psi/Saturated

Note: The performance of the turbines installed in the Ibuki is based on the results of the second trial run made on 23 June 1910, after modification of propellers and nozzle with permission from the Foreriver Shipbuilding Co. from which they were imported. Steam measurements were taken at the outlet of boilers. To be accurate, the Ibuki’s turbines achieved superheating by 22 ⬚F at the second trial run. Source: RCMESJ (ed.) ‘Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Joki Tabin Hen Soko’ (An unpublished manuscript of the history of marine engineering in Japan: the steam turbine), n.d., Kaigun Hen, 2–15, appended table 2.1, 2.2, 2.4, 2.5, appended chronology.

completion of the first turbine-driven warship in the world (the British cruiser Amethyst) in 1902, we find a time lag of only ten years, just the same as that for merchant turbine ships. And there was also little difference in performance between the Ibuki with the first imported naval turbine and the Kawachi with the first domestically produced one (see Table 3.2). How was it possible then to make the transfer of the marine turbine both for naval and merchant ships so swiftly, and in such a successful manner?6


The swift and successful transfer of this typical dual-use technology having a close link to different demands of the production process must have developed a complex structure involving different agents. And the integration of the private and the military sectors must have evolved within that complex structure of the transfer. Herein lies the key to elaborating the composite institutional structure in the military-industrial-university complex. Apart from the technology gap which was bridged by the composite structure described and analysed in Chapter 2, the composite structure had a context of its own within which the meaning of the structure can be more concretely specified and elaborated.7 That context included a variety of factors such as industrial policy, unique characteristics of product innovation, the market for production of naval vessels, and so on, which were interrelated during the entire process of the transfer. The role played by the Navy in the transfer will first make this context clearer.

The Imperial Japanese Navy as a technology gatekeeper: a dual role Most previous studies of the role of agents in fostering technology transfer in shipbuilding at the turn of the century have analysed such factors as government financial aid, the accumulation of capital in the shipbuilding industry, market structure, and the management and labour organizations of individual companies. Particularly in discussing the role played by the public sector in Japan, government financial aid to protect the domestic shipbuilding industry from international competition has been highlighted, while leaving the actual process of technology transfer and the emerging technology base to be formed and protected by the public sector as given or as a ‘black box’. The role of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the transfer of the marine turbine provides a very suitable case for breaking through this unbalanced focus of previous studies, because the Navy, as a technology gatekeeper, played a decisive role both in the transfer of the marine turbine and in creating its technology base through a complex but consistent strategy, which will be clarified below.8 On 22 November 1905, the Imperial Japanese Navy made a decision to introduce the marine turbine for sizeable naval vessels (Military Secret no.1221).9 That was even before an article on the subject first appeared in Japan in the official journal of the Shipbuilding Association, which was then the sole professional society of naval architecture and marine engineering.10 One of the most influential factors contributing to the decision was the realization by the Navy that ‘the Royal Navy would adopt the marine turbine for all warships to be constructed in the future’.11 Strangely, however, the first marine turbine adopted for Japanese warships was not the British type (abbreviated to Parsons turbine hereafter),12 but the rival American type, an impulse turbine with a pressure chamber, invented by an American engineer


Charles G. Curtis in 1896 (abbreviated to Curtis turbine hereafter).13 Military Secret No. 1222 of the Imperial Japanese Navy states: ‘The engines of the battleships Aki and Ibuki, under construction at the Kure arsenal of the Imperial Japanese Navy, are to be changed to the Curtis turbine’ (26 November 1905).14 Taking into account the recognition of the Navy at that time that ‘the most tried and tested marine steam turbine is the Parsons one’,15 such behaviour becomes all the more strange. Why did they behave in such an inconsistent manner? Was it because the Japanese still lacked the ability to form consistent judgements on the selection of technology under the circumstances of rapid technological innovation accompanied by unknown or uncertain elements? From the above-mentioned viewpoint of examining the process of the transfer itself and the way the technology base was formed through the process, this does not seem to explain the matter satisfactorily. The problem can be traced back to five months before that action was taken. At that time the superintendent of shipbuilding, Terugoro Fujii, who had been dispatched to Britain by the Imperial Japanese Navy, wrote a report entitled ‘Views on the adoption of the marine steam turbine’ (Steam Turbine o Saiyo no gi nitsuki Ikensho) (15 June 1905).16 In that report he supported the Royal Navy’s view, proposing the gradual ‘adoption’ of the Parsons turbine,17 which was quite consistent with the general position of the Imperial Japanese Navy at the time. A reply to a letter of his dated two days earlier, however, reveals that his position was more complex. The person who replied to his letter was the president of the Foreriver Shipbuilding Company, the maker of the Curtis turbine, A. T. Bowles. He wrote: Dear sir, I am in receipt of your [letter] of June 13th, asking for my … opinion as to the relative advantage of the Parsons and Curtis turbines … I believe the Curtis turbine superior … I trust that this information will be [of] service to you. (26 July 1905)18 This reply shows that Fujii gathered information in Britain on the Parsons turbine with a view to its adoption while at the same time he was asking the president of the rival company producing the Curtis turbine to provide information about the ‘relative advantage’ of the Parsons and Curtis turbines. We must call his approach a very prudent one. In fact, after re-examining the ‘relative advantage’ for about three more months, he completed ‘A Report on the Comparison between the Curtis and Parsons Turbines’ (Curtis to Parsons Ryoshiki Tarubin no Hikaku Hokokusho), which was submitted to the Imperial Japanese Navy on 20 October 1905 (see Table 3.3).19 The report compared 14 particulars of the Curtis and Parsons turbines of different sizes in ships of the same displacement, speed and output fitted with the respective turbines. In particular, it is noteworthy in the table that the Curtis turbine’s smaller rotor made the turbine more than 35 per cent lighter than the Parsons turbine. In addition, according to Fujii, the Curtis

56 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace Table 3.3 A comparison of the specifications of the Curtis and Parsons marine steam turbines Specification

Curtis

Displacement (GT)

14,500

Speed (kt) HP Engine room Steam pressure No. of turbines Steam consumption (lb) Weight (ton) Cost (£) Cost/tonwt (£) Cost/HP (£) Weight/HP (lb) Average cost/ton (£) Ratio of total cost

22 24,500 52’–48’ 250 psi 2 13 270 50,000 189 2.04 24.24 186.6 1

Parsons 14,000 15,000 22 25,000 60’–48’ 220 psi 6 16 500 85,000 170 3.4 44.8 176.6 1.59

Curtis

Parsons

4,100

4,100

24.5 17,500 44’–33’

24.5 17,500 55’–33’

2

6

172 32,000 186 1.83 22.16

270 47,000 174 2.6 35.7

Note: Steam consumption is estimated per hour. Source: Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Henshu Iinkai (Editorial Board for the History of Marine Engineering in Japan) (ed.) Teikoku Kaigun Kikan Shi (The history of Imperial Japanese Navy marine engines) (reprinted Tokyo: Hara Shobo, 1975), Ge Kan, pp. 438–9.

turbine made it unnecessary to set a large number of turbine blades in the rotor surfaces, which would have obliged the contemporary Japanese to provide, with great difficulty, extremely accurate workmanship.20 Fujii pointed out these advantages and concluded his report by remarking that ‘I am afraid that due to the fame of the Parsons’ type we shall neglect other types of the marine turbine which deserve consideration.’21 About a month later, the Navy decided to adopt the Curtis turbine.22 The contract with the Foreriver Shipbuilding Company was finally made at a cost of $475,000 on 1 June 1906.23 Thus, behind its seemingly strange and inconsistent behaviour, there lay not only well-planned, but also intensive prior inquiries by the Imperial Japanese Navy into the rival types. The policy based upon those inquiries, moreover, was never makeshift, since the contract for acquiring the patent rights with a view to licensed production was made as follows:24 1. The Japanese government will pay 100 thousand dollars … in return for acquisition of the rights for licensed production. 2. In addition to the payment mentioned above, the following royalties shall be paid; (1) 75 cents per HP at a full speed trial for battleships and 1st class cruisers. (2) 60 cents per HP at a full speed trial for 2nd and 3rd class cruisers and patrol boats. (3) 50 cents per HP at a full speed trial for destroyers and torpedo boats.


We find that the behaviour of the Navy was neither one-track nor beyond consistent explanation. On the contrary, its approach was prudent and complex, and consistent in its selection of this Curtis turbine. The selection was founded on careful comparative inquiries into the rival types of marine turbine, even in the first stage of its transfer, with a view to its future domestic production.25 Moreover, the Navy still did not exclude the possibility of adopting the rival Parsons turbine for the future, because it made a contract in turn with the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company five years later (17 May 1911) to acquire the rights for its production. What provided the reason for such behaviour at that point was a judgement that ‘The Parsons turbine has recently made striking improvements.’26 The contract included the following agreements:27 1. The Imperial Japanese Navy will pay 3000 pounds for acquisition of the rights for production. 2. When production starts, royalties of two shillings per HP shall be paid. The contract was made with a view to licensed production in the future, and in addition, for one other reason: ‘to make … our own improvements on it’.28 This prudent and consistent behaviour on the part of the Navy was similar to that of five years earlier when the contract with the Foreriver Shipbuilding Company was made. Thus the long-term strategy of the Imperial Japanese Navy appears quite flexible in that they continued to search for an appropriate marine turbine even after one type had already been selected. This means that it introduced rival types with about equal performance within a short period of time and left room for comparison of the qualities of each type in the process of their licensed production and for improving them subsequently. Orders for naval vessels given to shipbuilding companies greatly contributed to such flexibility, as explained below. There were two shipbuilding companies in the contemporary Japanese shipbuilding industry which had the ability to produce the marine turbine if the blueprints and materials were provided: Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard (established in 1884) and Kawasaki Shipbuilding Company (established in 1896). These two companies were close rivals with respect to the manpower and production facilities of their factories (see Figure 3.1, 3.2),29 and also in their competition for orders from the Navy (see Figure 3.3).30 Apart from its arsenals, the Navy made full use of the abilities of both shipbuilding companies and their rivalry in the market both during the production stage of the marine turbine and while it was being improved. It gave orders for vessels with the Parsons turbine only to Mitsubishi and for vessels with the Curtis turbine only to Kawasaki throughout.31 Mitsubishi was given its first order for the Mogami, a patrol boat with an 8000 HP Parsons turbine in 1905, while Kawasaki’s first order was for the Kawachi, a battleship with a 25,000 HP Curtis turbine in 1910.32 From that time onward both shipbuilding


Persons

7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 Mitsubishi

Kawasaki

Osaka

Uraga

Kobe

Ishikawa

Figure 3.1 Numbers of workers in Japanese shipbuilding companies in 1907 Note: The full names of the shipbuilding companies, other than Mitsubishi and Kawasaki, are: Osaka Iron Works; Uraga Dockyard; Kobe Mitsubishi Kobe Shipyard; Ishikawajima Shipbuilding. Source: Kojo Tsuran, The Survey of Factories, 1909.

6000

5000

HP

4000

3000

2000

1000

0

Kawasaki

Mitsubishi

Uraga

Osaka

Kobe

Ishikawa

Figure 3.2 Total HP of prime movers used in production in Japanese shipbuilding companies in 1907 Note: For the full names of the shipbuilding companies see Figure 3.1. Source: Kojo Tsuran, The Survey of Factories, 1909.

companies continued to accumulate experience in the specialized production of the Parsons and Curtis turbines respectively, through which they made progress from licensed production to improvements (the MitsubishiParsons type; the Kawasaki-Foreriver type), and from these improvements on to the production of their own types (the Mitsubishi type; the Kawasaki type). The Navy carefully monitored the qualities of the Parsons and Curtis

Technology Gatekeepers Combine 59 45000 40000 35000

GT

30000 25000 20000 15000 10000 5000 0 Mitsubishi

Kawasaki

Onohama

Uraga

Osaka

Ishikawa

Figure 3.3 Naval vessel construction by Japanese shipbuilding companies, 1884–1914 Note: For the full names of the shipbuilding companies see Figure 3.1. Onohama indicates Onohama Shipbuilding Company. Source: Annual Report of the Naval Ministry.

turbines in the process, and finally produced a new type which maximized the advantages and minimized the disadvantages of both types. This was the Kanpon type, which had an impulse turbine in both the high pressure and low pressure stages. (Kanpon is an abbreviation of ‘Kansei Honbu’, which means the Technical Headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Navy.)33 Figure 3.4 shows a plane view of the first Kanpon type produced in Japan in 1924. This was designed for destroyers, the Oikaze class. It used steam of 260 psi superheated by 100⬚F, which enabled the maximum output to reach 38,500 SHP in total. The upper row shows the high pressure stage in which the blades rotate at 3156 rpm, while the lower row shows the low pressure stage in which the blades rotate at 2135 rpm. As can be seen, a single reduction gearing was adopted.34 Table 3.4 shows the main intermediate types of marine turbines produced in Japan until the Kanpon type was established. The Kanpon type represented a landmark, not only in that the introduced marine turbine had taken root in Japan, but also in that it became the wellknown prototype for later marine turbines for Japanese naval vessels until 1945 as will be detailed in Chapter 6. Thus the behaviour of the Imperial Japanese Navy was consistently rational in terms of its interest in and approach to the marine turbine in four respects. First, the initial selection of the technology was made carefully, based on detailed comparative inquiries. Second, this initial selection of technology was still flexible enough to allow examination of the parallel development of rival types of technology. Third, rival types of technology with about equal performance were introduced so that a full-scale comparison

60

Figure 3.4 A plane view of the first Kanpon type marine steam turbine Source: Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Gakkai Hakuyo Kikan Chosa Kenkyu Iinkai (Research Committee of Marine Engineering Society of Japan) (ed.) ‘Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shijoki Tabin Hen Soko’ (An unpublished manuscript of the history of marine engineering in Japan: the steam turbine), n.d., appended plans,2.54.

Technology Gatekeepers Combine 61 Table 3.4 The main intermediate types of marine steam turbine produced in Japan until the Kanpon type was established

Types

Year of first production

No. of shafts & engines

Max. output (SHP)

M-P K-F-C K-B-C G

1911 1912 1917 1920

3-1 2-2 4-2 4-4

20,500 25,000 45,000 80,000

I-Z M

1923 1924

2-2 2-2

21,500 5,500

Steam 275 psi/saturated 275 psi/saturated 275 psi/saturated 275 psi/superheated 100 ⬚F 260 psi/saturated 170 psi/superheated 120 ⬚F

Notes: M-P: Mitsubishi-Parsons; K-F-C: Kawasaki-Foreriver-Curtis; K-B-C: Kawasaki-Brown-Curtis; G: Gihon; I-Z: Ishikawajima-Zoelly; M: Mitsubishi. Steam measurements were taken at the inlet of the turbine for the Mitsubishi type and at the outlet of the boiler for all other types. In principle, maximum output indicates total output measured in a full speed trial. Source: RCMESJ (ed.) ‘Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Joki Tabin’ Hen Soko (An unpublished manuscript of the history of marine engineering in Japan: the steam turbine), n.d., appended chronology.

of respective qualities could be made, enabling Japan to decrease risks due to the uncertainties associated with product innovations. And fourth, once the technology was introduced, subsequent licensed production, improvements and the production of a new type were accomplished by fully utilizing the production abilities of shipbuilding companies and their competition in the market for production of naval vessels.35 In other words, the Imperial Japanese Navy played a dual role in the process of the transfer. It took the lead through its thorough prior inquiries and careful examination and selection of technology up to its introduction, after which, in contrast, it allowed the invisible hand of the market to take over. The stages by which technology transfer was accomplished through the workings of market forces extended from the licensed production of naval turbines to improvements and ultimately to the production of a new type. It thus embodied two different kinds of rationality: state interventionist and market rationality in different stages of the transfer.36 The question then arises as to how the coexistence of these two types of rationality should be interpreted in explaining science and technology transfer in light of the new gatekeeper model presented in Chapter 1 and exemplified in Chapter 2.

The rationality of technology gatekeepers The dual rationality operating in the process of the marine turbine transfer clarified above directs our attention to a fresh way of interpreting the process in the light of the role of technology gatekeepers. The dual rationality


observed in the behaviour of the Navy suggests that latecomers’ advantages in themselves would not have been sufficient for Japan to succeed in the transfer, because that rationality actively functioned to provide the conditions in which latecomers’ advantages could be effected. This was due to: (1) the decisive intervention of the Navy in the early stage of the transfer which made it possible for Japan to introduce and learn the technology base of the marine turbine efficiently within a short time;37 and (2) a sort of free market policy of the same agent in the later stage which, by contrast, enabled the country to get the technology to take root in its shipbuilding industry quite successfully. Neither skilled workers’ talent held up as a sort of mystical national tradition about modern Japan nor any ‘miracle’ due to historical accidents would have been sufficient to assure success without the unique combination of this twofold rationality. At different stages in the transfer, we can observe both state interventionist and market rationality within the behaviour of a single agent involved in the transfer. And the technology transferred was also twofold in type originating from Britain and from the US so that Japan could, and possibly had to, consciously control the timing of their introduction and take different but suitable orientations towards them at the right time. In a word, the transfer of the marine turbine shows that there were complexities in the behaviour of the public sector that have not been seriously noticed before. First, the enormous potential of product innovation could only be implemented if there was a function to select one type of technology out of multiple exemplars and the timing to effect the transfer. This function matches well what the new gatekeeper model of science and technology transfer suggests as to the role of technology gatekeepers. Second, furthermore, the behaviour of the public sector involved in the transfer of a single technology is not uniform but may change drastically with the stage of the transfer process. These new complexities observed in the behaviour of the Navy that proved to be quite strategic for a technology gatekeeper in the public sphere have two implications for an understanding of industrial policy: 1. The rationality of industrial policy cannot be defined based solely on such one-dimensional criteria as to what extent industrial policy makes it possible to achieve a catch-up in advanced technology. Under multipleexemplar situations, it should be defined by such multi-dimensional criteria as how it could balance the different features of multiple types of technology so as to maximize their advantages and minimize disadvantages. A single-exemplar catch-up process is replaced by maximization of ‘relative advantage’ among multiple types of a single technology. 2. The rationality of industrial policy, therefore, may be reduced to the selection of proper types of technology at different times, assimilating these types, and controlling the timing of their introduction within a specific industry, to achieve the most feasible combination of these types in view of the society’s industrial level. The dual role of the Imperial Japanese Navy described and analyzed above fulfilled such a function.


Of course, these implications for industrial policy are relative to the degree of technology gap and institutional arrangements for implementing industrial policy so that the behaviour of key agents embodying such rationality (in this instance the Navy) may vary with the individual situation.38 But the rationality effected through the role of technology gatekeepers will be far less variable than the behaviour, and the active attitude required for carrying out such a role would also be necessary in different situations.39 If the Navy had not played the dual role mentioned above, for example, some other agents (for example, shipbuilding companies or other government organizations) would have had to play a functionally equivalent role, or the technology transfer would not have come about. This function-oriented perspective on technology transfer will generally be flexible enough to destroy the fixed triad of latecomers’ advantages, government-directed industrialization, and the catch-up with Western science and technology, and to analyse their relationship afresh. From this perspective, what function can we then expect in the role played by Mitsubishi, which was involved as the other technology gatekeeper in the transfer but in a different manner?

The role of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Because the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5) oriented technological development in Japan towards heavy industries, previous scholars have highlighted the role of the Japanese government, and especially the military, in effecting technology transfers from the West without elucidating the complex structure of the process of technology transfer.40 As for the public sector, this bias towards making that complex structure a black box is replaced by the above description and analysis of the strategically flexible behaviour pattern of the Navy. And the private sector too played a different but equally significant role in the transfer of technology in the leading industries of the day such as shipbuilding and marine engineering, and here too the black box will be opened for scrutiny.41 In this context, the role of Mitsubishi is revealing.42 The company sought out new marine technologies in Britain, and acquired the necessary technical and scientific expertise. Mitsubishi was the other noteworthy technology gatekeeper in the transfer, and played a central role in fostering the production and development of marine turbines in Japan in a different manner from that observed in the Navy’s strategically flexible behaviour. Mitsubishi’s involvement in marine turbine transfer dates from 1904. On 2 November of that year, Ichiro Ezaki, a director of the engine design section and Eizaburo Araki, a foreman in a Mitsubishi fitting shop, departed for Britain by order of the company. Their destination was Newcastle-upon-Tyne where they were expected to master the design and manufacturing technologies of the marine turbine at the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company at Wallsend established by C. A. Parsons in 1897.43 On 21 November 1904, Mitsubishi concluded a contract with the company to purchase the right to


manufacture the Parsons turbine. Even before this trip, in 1903, Mitsubishi had purchased two turbine-generators from Parsons, the first yielding 100 kW and the second 500 kW.44 Thus Mitsubishi took the first step to transfer the steam turbine even before the Imperial Japanese Navy took its first official step in 1905. Mitsubishi began to assimilate the turbine power revolution almost from its inception in Britain. Mitsubishi clearly valued its Parsons investment highly. After Ezaki and Araki returned to Japan in November 1905, the Parsons turbine was shrouded in secrecy. Kozo Yokoyama, later director of the marine engine design section, noted that ‘Mr Ezaki did not mention how to design it at all to keep secrecy’ and ‘the turbine shop was kept secret and not accessible except to those permitted.’45 In 1904 the corporation purchased turbine manufacturing rights in the whole of the Far East as well. Indeed, Mitsubishi’s commitment probably predates a full study of the engine itself. Thus, in December of 1903, nearly a full year before the Ezaki/Araki trip, Heigoro Shoda, Mitsubishi’s manager (shihainin), was already discussing the marine turbine with assistant managers Rokuro Mizutani and Hidemi Maruta: As to the turbine, how about sending the following letter? The Imperial Japanese Navy seems not to have made an immediate decision on the turbine and there are no other prospective customers. Since we are not sure whether it would be a good idea for us to pay a lump sum for the five-year royalty or if we will receive any order during the period, I hesitate to purchase the manufacturing rights … In the case that Mr Parsons intends to sell the right to other companies, we should make up our mind immediately to purchase the rights with a reasonable royalty. … When I had a chance to meet Jiro Miyahara of the Imperial Japanese Navy the other day, I asked about the prospect of the adoption of the marine turbine by the Imperial Japanese Navy. According to his answer, since a proposal for a trial at the Imperial Japanese Navy was opposed by a large majority, there is no prospect at the moment.46 Shoda’s memo was in fact a preparatory draft intended eventually as a letter of enquiry to Parsons. Clearly, neither the Imperial Japanese Navy nor private companies showed any intention of adopting the marine turbine at this time, thus making it difficult for Mitsubishi to predict any sales should they obtain production rights. Nonetheless, Mitsubishi purchased the rights, with ‘a reasonable royalty’, because they did not want to miss the chance to dominate this market. Shoda’s memo suggests a still fluctuating attitude at Mitsubishi. Rather than evaluating the technology with its own preliminary technical assessment, Mitsubishi evaluated it indirectly by observing the Navy’s lack of interest and approaching the Parsons transaction as a defensive manoeuvre: they wanted the manufacturing rights, not because of the turbine’s verified


technological value but to prevent other companies from obtaining those rights. Two weeks later, Shoda exhibited the same attitude in another memo to his two assistant managers: ‘How about using the Parsons turbine on the Shimonoseki-Pusan ferryboat of Sanyo Railway Company after purchasing the manufacturing rights? Although the manufacturing costs may be high … we may be able to use the ferryboat as an effective advertisement.’47 Mitsubishi’s first initiatives in marine turbine manufacturing have a speculative, rather than a precisely rational, quality. Indeed, at the time of the Ezaki/Araki trip, few if any company managers appeared to anticipate any orders. Even Shoda himself, the one who pushed the project, observed in December of 1903, ‘It is possible but extremely unlikely that we will receive an order within the period [of the manufacturing rights monopoly].’48 Despite their low expectation, however, Mitsubishi received its first order for a merchant ship propelled by a turbine two years later. In 1905, Toyo Kisen Company ordered a ship of over 13,000 tons, larger than any merchant ship in Japanese history, the Tenyomaru mentioned earlier. It was a very daring decision. The largest merchant ship ever made by Mitsubishi was the Tangomaru of 7463 tons (completed in 1905). The technical leap from the Tangomaru to the Tenyomaru was dramatic, as is shown in Table 3.5.49 Table 3.5 A comparison of the specifications of the Tangomaru and the Tenyomaru Specifications Year completed Gross tons Length (m) Width (m) Depth (m) Type of engines Full speed (kt) Maximum output (HP) No. of boilers No. of shafts Rpm Degree of vacuum (in Hg)

Tangomaru

Tenyomaru

1905 7,463 134.848 15.758 10.182 Triple expansion 15.612 6,424 1 2 95.9 26.1

1908 13,454 166.667 19.091 11.697 Parsons Turbine 20.608 19,000 13 3 270 28

Note: The Parsons turbine of the Tenyomaru was imported from the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company. The degree of vacuum of the Tangomaru is the average value for left and right shaft engines, while that of the Tenyomaru was the same in each turbine. Source: RCMESJ (ed.) ‘Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Joki Tabin Hen Soko’ (An unpublished manuscript of the history of marine engineering in Japan: the steam turbine), n.d., Minkan Hen; Zosen Kyokai (ed.) Nippon Kinsei Zosen Shi: Meiji Jidai (The history of shipbuilding in modern Japan: Meiji period) (Tokyo: 1911), pp. 699–701; Mitsubishi Zosen, Sogyo Hyakunen no Nagasaki Zosenjo (A Centenary history of the Nagasaki Shipyard) (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Zosenjo, 1957, Shuyo Seihin Ichiran Hyo 1.)


Clearly Soichiro Asano, president of Toyo Kisen Company, ran a substantial risk in placing the order.50 However, Mitsubishi also faced a major decision when accepting it. Taisuke Shiota, Mitsubishi’s engineer in those days, commented as follows: Britain was entering the age of turbine ships. As to large-scale turbine ships, however, only the Royal Mail was constructing the Victorian and the Virginian both weighing 10,500 tons. We were a little worried because the ship, if completed, would be 13,000 tons, the world’s largest steam turbine ship. Mr Shoda and I were surprised that Mr Asano made the daring decision. Later, Mr Shoda urged Mr Asano to reconsider.51 Shoda’s reasoning is clear. Since Mitsubishi had adopted the Parsons turbine for speculative purposes without a technological evaluation, many uncertainties remained about the technical leap from a 7463-ton vessel to the mammoth 13,454-ton Tenyomaru. To supervise the assembly, installation, test trial and full-speed trial of the main steam turbine imported for the Tenyomaru, Mitsubishi temporarily employed Samuel Pringle, an engineer from the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company. Pringle arrived in Nagasaki on 28 July 1907 and the ship was launched on 14 September 1907. He stayed in Nagasaki until the ship was completed on 22 April 1908 and delivered to Toyo Kisen Company.52 Mitsubishi invested heavily in the new engine and constructed a new turbine shop, immediately before the arrival of Pringle, which was completed in April 1907. The equipment of the shop alone cost 266,585 yen, equivalent to more than 3 per cent of gross sales in fiscal 1906.53 Several experts, in particular Seiichi Terano and Chuzaburo Shiba, supported the adoption of the steam turbine for ships. Terano, an adviser to Toyo Kisen Company and a professor in the Shipbuilding Department of the Faculty of Engineering at the Imperial University of Tokyo, read the first paper about turbine ships to the Shipbuilding Association. Shiba was also a professor at the Imperial University of Tokyo.54 Because of the uncertainty involved in this product innovation, however, even Heigoro Shoda, known as ‘the most innovative spirit of the day in Mitsubishi’, hesitated to use the turbine as the main engine and urged the Toyo Kisen Company to reconsider.55 Some factors apparently did not cast these start-up investments in a promising light. Mitsubishi’s conduct in these transactions belies a simple explanation of the company’s motive in terms of calculable profit alone. The demand for steamers of any sort, let alone turbine ships, was barely emerging at the time. Government promotion, in particular through the 1896 Shipbuilding Promotion Law (Zosen Shorei Ho) and the Shipping Promotion Law (Kokai Shorei Ho) of the same year, was intended to ‘lay the foundation of the competitiveness of the Japanese shipbuilding companies with those overseas companies’.56 However, the Shipbuilding Promotion Law did not apply to


ships such as the proposed Tenyomaru, which were powered by engines imported from abroad.57 Despite the technological uncertainties and risks of an innovative product and the limited applicability of the supporting legislation, Mitsubishi made serious investments, such as the turbine shop construction, for the first Japanese merchant turbine ship. We might today interpret Mitsubishi’s activities in two ways: Mitsubishi led the initial turbine technology only in order to monopolise the design technology, or made a high-risk decision primarily in order to introduce the turbine. We can at least say that a kind of entrepreneurship was involved. Mitsubishi showed an enterprising attitude typical of private companies facing the risks of product innovation. The company’s monitoring of new turbine technologies from the beginning seems to have supported the early transfer of the marine turbine.58 Soon after the transfer of the turbine technology, Mitsubishi manufactured the first domestically produced marine turbines in Japan. They were first used in constructing a sister ship of the Tenyomaru, the Shunyomaru, which, as mentioned earlier, was completed on 15 August 1911.59 The marine turbines of the Shunyomaru under construction are shown in Figure 3.5. The domestically

Figure 3.5 The marine steam turbines of the Shunyomaru under construction at Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Source: Collection of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, Shiryo Kan.

68 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace Table 3.6 The specifications of the imported and domestically produced marine steam turbines for merchant ships Specifications Year completed Gross tons Type of engines

Top speed (kt) Maximum output (HP) No. of boilers No. of shafts No. of turbines Rotor length (high pressure stage) Rotor diameter (high pressure stage) Rotor length (low pressure stage) Rotor diameter (low pressure stage) Rpm Steam Degree of vacuum(in Hg)

Tenyomaru

Shunyomaru

1908 13,454 Parsons Turbine (imported) 20.608 19,000 13 3 3 23ft

1911 13,377 Parsons Turbine (domestically produced) 20.234 19,000 13 3 3 22ft 0.63in

7ft 1in

6ft 4in

32ft 4in

31ft 0.13in

10ft 4in

8ft 10in

270 170 psi/ saturated steam 28

270 170 psi/ saturated steam 28

Source: RCMESJ (ed.) ‘Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Joki Tabin Hen Soko’ (An unpublished manuscript of the history of marine engineering in Japan: the steam turbine), n.d., Minkan Hen, appended table 3.1, 3.3, 3.6.

produced Shunyomaru turbine incorporated small variations in design (see Table 3.6). A slightly smaller rotor in the domestically produced turbine equalled the output of the imported one on the Tenyomaru. Both the domestic and imported engines were direct-coupled turbines which revolved at a low speed (270 rpm) to prevent cavitation (which wastes rotating energy) as will be detailed in Chapter 4. A small heat drop in elementary turbines requires large rotors to produce a specified output. Therefore, smaller rotors, even slightly smaller, suggest a conscious adaptation. Even if it was necessary to import materials and blueprints for the domestic production,60 Mitsubishi’s production was quite successful from the start.

Entrepreneurial risk-taking of technology gatekeepers Thus the risk-taking role played by Mitsubishi in the initial stages of the technology transfer – acting without a full technological evaluation and


selection – was quite striking. This provides strong evidence against the schematic explanation of Japanese industrialization which assumes that a rational selection of Western science and technology was made from the start. Private companies’ role in Japanese industrialization was to watch for opportunities for a risk-taking technical leap rather than fully considered pragmatic behaviour. This behaviour pattern of Mitsubishi was non-rational in a broad sense but, in a far more positive sense, it suggests an entrepreneurship of technology gatekeepers not seen in the behaviour pattern of the Navy.61 This idea gives us significant insights into the Japanese industrialization process at a time when heavy industrialization led by shipbuilding was gathering speed. The key point is that the marine turbine was still in the process of innovation at the time of its transfer to Japan.62 As mentioned earlier, this situation meant that at the time the technology inevitably contained unknown or at least uncertain elements to be cleared up not only for those who introduced it, but also for those who developed it. Understandably, the above-mentioned successful domestic production of the marine turbine following its importation from Britain by Mitsubishi might invite an interpretation of its transfer as a typical example of the process of ‘learning by using’, which was observed in the transfer of the experimental tank described and analysed in Chapter 2.63 However, when we carefully analyse the situation in which Mitsubishi’s initial decision to purchase the right of licensed production of the marine turbine was made on 21 November 1904, such a rational interpretation turns out to be too simplistic, since the decision was made only three days after the publication in Britain of the results of the first full-scale ship trials of the marine turbine, which confirmed its superiority as a commercial technology to the conventional marine engine (for example, multiple expansion reciprocating engine) as a first step towards clearing up the former’s unknown or uncertain elements. The trials compared the performance of turbine ships and steamers in terms of fuel-efficiency by measuring the water and coal consumption per unit time, and were designed to provide conclusive proof of the superiority of the marine turbine as a commercial technology. According to the results of these trials, ‘Economy is the one great element proved by the exhaustive and very carefully-conducted trials.’64 Namely, at speeds over 14 knots, the turbine ship was more fuel-efficient than the steamers (see Figure 3.6, Figure 3.7). Based on these results, the following conclusion was reported: the steam turbine, when running at its full designed speed, is capable of an economy better than that of the ordinary reciprocating engine. As merchant ships are, for 99 per cent of their time, running at their full speed, the gain must be very considerable.65

70 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace (lb) 240,000 220,000 200,000

“AMETHYST” “TOPAZE” “SAPPHIRE” “DIAMOND”

180,000 160,000 140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000

10

12

14

16

18

20

22

24 (kt)

Figure 3.6 Water consumption per hour of the turbine ship and steamers Source: ‘The economy of steam turbines in cruisers’, Engineering, 18 November 1904, Table IV. pp. 689–92.

The Tenyomaru, the first Japanese merchant turbine ship, and the Shunyomaru, the first with domestically produced marine turbines installed, both constructed by Mitsubishi, must have profited from this efficiency since their full speed was far more than 14 knots (20.608 and 20.234 knots respectively as shown in Table 3.6). In this respect, Mitsubishi’s behaviour certainly appears to have been rational. However, the timing of the very decision that might provide the chief support for a rational account of this sort was, as mentioned above, only three days after this important information obtained from the full-scale ship trials had been released. Even allowing an unrealistic assumption that there was no time lag in transmitting the information to Japan, it is unthinkable that Mitsubishi instantly abandoned consideration of other uncertainties due to different specifications of the ships to be constructed and in three days made a decision by calculating expected utility based only on these trials. In addition, since it was not until 1905 that Mitsubishi

Technology Gatekeepers Combine 71 (lb) 28,000 26,000 24,000 20,000

“AMETHYST” “TOPAZE” “SAPPHIRE” “DIAMOND”

18,000 16,000 14,000 12,000 10,000 8,000 6,000 4,000 2,000 10

12

14

16

18

20

22

24 (kt)

Figure 3.7 Coal consumption per hour of the turbine ship and steamers Source: ‘The economy of steam turbines in cruisers’, Engineering, 18 November 1904, table V.

received the first order for the construction of a merchant turbine ship, no market for the construction had been formed at the time of this decisionmaking. In a shipbuilding industry where order production has been the norm for many years, it is impossible to calculate expected utility in this situation without any order. Latent demand might have been expected. However, the analysis earlier in this chapter strongly suggests that Mitsubishi’s decision was made in a situation where there was ‘no prospect of the adoption’ of the marine turbine at that time, as is manifested in Shoda’s memo and also in his insistence on reconsidering the construction of the first merchant turbine ship. Thus the careful analysis of the situation in which Mitsubishi’s initial decision to make a contract with the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company was made illuminates the risk-taking aspect of innovation-oriented entrepreneurship operating in Mitsubishi’s approach rather than a purely rational action. The heavy prior investment made by Mitsubishi in preparation for


constructing the first merchant turbine ship can only be properly understood within this context of risk-taking. Further, in addition to the abovementioned uncertainty of the marine turbine for immediate commercial use, the contemporary marine turbine contained a still more essential uncertainty affecting its total efficiency until the middle of the 1910s. The problem sprang from the fact that until then the direct-coupled turbine was widely used. A desirable condition for the working of the marine turbine is several thousand rpm. On the other hand, ship propellers work best at around 100–200 rpm. Thus the optimal rpm for the working of the marine turbine and for propellers differs by a factor of about ten. To avoid cavitation (see Chapter 4 for further details) caused by making the revolutions of the propellers equal with the much higher revolutions of the turbine, the rpm of the direct-coupled turbine was reduced to the level of the propellers. However, this impairs the thermal efficiency of the turbine. The fundamental way to solve these incompatible requirements simultaneously is to find a new propulsion system other than propellers, such as jet propulsion in the case of aircraft.66 One of the greatest advantages of the marine turbine, its high propeller revolutions, reduced propulsion efficiency by cavitation, whose avoidance in turn lowers the thermal efficiency. If this problem were not solved, the marine turbine would never exhibit its full potential as a commercial technology superior to the conventional marine engine. This was the biggest problem of the direct-coupled turbine of the day that affected its total efficiency. Technology is sui generis the art of making incompatible requirements simultaneously compatible. One provisional solution was soon found. This was the introduction of an intermediary mechanism for decreasing the high rpm of the turbine to a much lower one to be transmitted to the propellers, which allows both turbines and propellers to work under their respective optimal conditions. In theory, the solution is excellent. But in practice, this solution gave rise to at least two new problems whose solutions were also uncertain. First, the best working system for the intermediary mechanism had not been determined. As a matter of fact, at least three options, an electrical, mechanical or hydraulic system, were proposed nearly simultaneously. Second, the 10 : 1 difference in rpm to be linked by the system was so large that there was an uncertainty about the extent of mechanical loss, noise, durability of the system, and wear abrasion, and so on. The test performance of the system was made public in a journal in 1910 when the relative advantage of the mechanical system in dealing with the above uncertainty (reduction gearing) was first suggested.67 It was not until 1913 that the system was first introduced to Japan, when the cargo-passenger ship Anyomaru (9534 GT, 7500 SHP) with a single reduction gearing was built by Mitsubishi.68


Therefore, it is clear that Mitsubishi was not pursuing a rational strategy based on expected utility, since the marine turbine technology was too immature, due to all these uncertainties, to allow them to capitalize on it. This would have made the marine turbine something that Mitsubishi should have avoided adopting at least until the middle of the 1910s when the reduction gearing came to be gradually introduced after many trials and errors. Even during that stage of diffusion, the reduction gearing often brought about unexpected and shocking breakdowns. In just one example, the single reduction gearing adopted for the first time in Japan by the Anyomaru in 1913 caused a serious breakdown at its inception. Kozo Yokoyama, an engineer of the engine design section of Mitsubishi of the day, gave the details of the accident as follows: The reduction gearing of the Anyomaru was broken at a small gearing part immediately after the ship was commissioned, which posed a serious problem. Direct-coupled turbines … have been unable to achieve higher total efficiency than that achieved by traditional reciprocating engines … so that the turbines have long been unwelcome for cargo ships for which economical running is everything. Although the reduction gearing came into being to avoid this disadvantage … not a few people concerned have long felt serious misgivings about the performance of the high-speed gearing used for the transmission of the large output required for propelling largescale ships. The Anyomaru’s gearing accident provided corroboration of this persistent suspicion, further amplifying the misgivings.69 Despite all these uncertainties, which would seriously affect the marine turbines’ total efficiency, Mitsubishi’s decision to purchase the right to produce the Parsons turbine under licence was made in 1904. We can find here nothing more or less than an innovation-oriented approach of the private sector. Nor was there naturally any room for ‘learning by using’ at the time of this initial decision because the reduction gearing was not invented then and there could be no ‘using’ that could have contributed to the solution of the marine turbines’ inefficiency. It is difficult to find anything to establish the rationality of the decision in the contemporary situation surrounding Mitsubishi. Thus with full awareness of the risk, Mitsubishi dared to move to make the earliest introduction of the marine turbine into Japan. By thus making the introduction much earlier than would be expected from rational action based on expected utility, Mitsubishi independently controlled the timing of the transfer of the marine turbine to Japan. The lack of any process of selection significantly endorses the function of controlling timing as asserted in the new gatekeeper model. In this respect, Mitsubishi played a role as the other important technology gatekeeper through exhibiting entrepreneurship, which shows a sharp contrast with the parallel role played by the Navy.


How did technology gatekeepers combine? The emergence of the Japanese military-industrial-university complex What was then the relationship between these two technology gatekeepers, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Mitsubishi? Since the Navy was a client and Mitsubishi was a contractor in the market for the production of naval vessels, both were evidently connected with each other through a formal orderer–manufacturer relationship. Behind this formal relationship, moreover, we can see an informal interplay between the two technology gatekeepers. When the Navy concluded the contract to purchase the manufacturing rights for the Parsons turbine for £3000 in 1911, for example, the Mitsubishi Limited Partnership, to which Mitsubishi belonged, was the joint contractor. The contract states: ‘This contract is concluded between Mr Parsons of the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company, and Mitsubishi Goshi Kwaisha and the Imperial Japanese Navy.’70 This clearly indicates that the Navy and Mitsubishi had common interests. And Terugoro Fujii, the superintendent of shipbuilding dispatched by the Navy to Britain, who submitted the first comparison report of the Parsons and Curtis marine turbines, contacted Ichiro Ezaki, the director of the marine engine design section of Mitsubishi who had also been dispatched by the company to master the design of the Parsons marine turbine. During their stay in Britain, they consulted with each other about acquiring blueprints of the Parsons turbine produced for the Royal Navy.71 Hidemi Maruta, a Mitsubishi assistant manager at the time when Mitsubishi concluded the contract to acquire the rights to produce the marine turbine under licence (who became manager in 1906), was a former Navy officer.72 Thus the Imperial Japanese Navy and Mitsubishi had not only an orderer–manufacturer relationship but also informal organizational and personnel ties, which backed up this formal relationship centring around their common interests in the adoption of the marine turbine. Apart from these formal and informal connections, here we must consider another indirect but critical link between the two technology gatekeepers to understand their relationship. Both parties played different roles as technology gatekeepers, each displaying individual patterns of behaviour. Nevertheless their actions eventually converged in the transfer of the marine turbine. In this situation, relevant institutional factors which coordinated and integrated the mutually independent actions of the respective agents must have been instrumental in achieving the transfer. In particular, there must have been a common ground enabling a learning process to be shared by these twin technology gatekeepers during this technology transfer. It is very important in this context that there was no great difference in ability between the technical personnel of the Navy and Mitsubishi. If several agents working together on advanced technology are not balanced in the quality of technical personnel, the joint work often fails (for example,


technical cooperation between an advanced country and a developing country often fails due to an imbalance of this sort).73 The Navy and Mitsubishi each employed a significant number of graduates from the Shipbuilding Department of the Imperial University of Tokyo, which had been established in 1898. This department had grown out of the Shipbuilding Department of the Engineering College of the Imperial University (Teikoku Daigaku) established in 1886.74 This university engineering education shared by the engineers of both the Navy and Mitsubishi prevented an imbalance of personnel quality, helped mutual communication, and served as one of the critical institutional factors that paved the way for the transfer of the marine turbine into Japan. This was because by the turn of the century, it had become a general trend that graduates from the Shipbuilding Department of the Imperial University of Tokyo, which taught engine manufacturing for both naval and merchant ships,75 found employment in both the Navy and private companies including Mitsubishi (see Table 3.7). Thus the university played an important role in providing both public and private sectors in Japan with a common yardstick for ensuring the quality of human resources. An independent supply route of human resources of this kind helped communication between the parties involved in the transfer, since these engineers of both the Navy and Mitsubishi had been brought up since their freshman days on the common university curriculum designed for mastering science-based expertise in engineering. When transferring a high technology of the day such as the marine turbine that can work only on a grounding of scientific principles (thermodynamics), together with practice in the production process, such a common university engineering education for mastering science-based expertise was especially important in easing communication between the different parties concerned.

Table 3.7 Professional careers of graduates from the Shipbuilding Department of the Imperial University of Tokyo, 1883–1903 The Imperial Japanese Navy Shipbuilding companies Maritime officials Shipping companies Teachers at the Imperial University of Tokyo Self-employed Deceased Graduate school Military service Study abroad Total

35 28 20 10 6 5 4 3 2 1 114

Source: Furokuro Miyoshi, ‘Waga daigaku ni okeru zosengaku’ (The shipbuilding department of the Imperial University of Tokyo), Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, No. 2 (1904), pp. 13–16.


As outlined in Chapter 1 and 2, Japan’s engineering education began with the Engineering College established by the Ministry of Engineering in 1873, and continued with its successor, the Engineering College of the Imperial University (Teikoku Daigaku Koka Daigaku) established by the Ministry of Education in 1886. Japan incorporated scientific education in its university engineering educational system from the outset, whereas contemporary British universities accepted both scientific and technical education only with reluctance. This emphasis on scientific training is borne out in the mechanical engineering curriculum of the Engineering College, which both shipbuilding and mechanical engineering students followed. Students took seven courses: advanced mathematics (koto sugaku), advanced science (koto rigaku), mechanical engineering (kikaigaku), naval architecture (zosengaku), scientific experiments (rigaku shiken), drawing (zugaku), and practical workshop training (seisakuba).76 Likewise in 1886, when a new curriculum in shipbuilding was established in the Imperial University’s Engineering College to ‘give an education about both naval architecture and marine engineering’,77 the focus on scientific training was very similar. The curriculum also consisted of seven courses: mathematics (sugaku), physics (butsurigaku), applied mechanics (oyo jugaku), mechanical engineering (kikaigaku), naval architecture (zosengaku), ship drawing (zosen seizu), and physics experiments (butsuri jikken).78 Here, ‘physics’, which was the counterpart of the ‘advanced science’ earlier offered by the Engineering College, included ‘the first and the second laws of thermodynamics [netsu dorikigaku], the Carnot function [Carnot’s cycle], and Joule’s method for calculating average mechanical heat power [the mechanical equivalent of heat].’79 Thus thermodynamics was already a part of the lecture content under the name of netsu dorikigaku. It should be no surprise that the graduates from the university who entered the Navy and Mitsubishi after training in these subjects could easily grasp the necessary concepts and calculations and achieve mutual communication based on them. In 1908 when the first Japanese merchant turbine ship Tenyomaru and the first Japanese turbine-driven naval vessel, the patrol boat Mogami were completed, Saiichiro Uchimaru, an associate professor of the Engineering College of the Imperial University of Tokyo (formerly The Imperial University), wrote the first Japanese textbook on the steam turbine.80 Thanks to this common scientific basis for understanding marine turbine technology provided by the university, the independent actions taken by the twin technology gatekeepers of the Navy and Mitsubishi converged, enabling the transfer. In other words, only with this indirect but critical link between the twin gatekeepers made possible through the early engineering education given by the university, could the transfer have a composite structure made up of independent actions taken by the public and private sectors. Thus the unique combination of an infrastructure for fostering human resources in engineering provided by the university, the highly rational behaviour of the Navy and the highly speculative behaviour of Mitsubishi


contributed equally and in a significantly different manner to the technology transfer. In this respect, this composite structure sustained by the twin technology gatekeepers of the public and private sectors being linked by the university provided a spontaneous prototype of a military-industrial-university complex. From this spontaneous interaction, a more consciously planned and large-scale military-industrial-university complex developed in the interaction between science, technology and Japanese society during the wartime mobilization of science and technology, which remained in place until 1945, as will be touched on in Chapter 6. The existence of this complex provides a powerful argument against a simplistic account of prewar Japanese industrialization interpreted mainly within the framework of latecomers’ advantages. Admittedly, if the advantage is understood in rough cost–benefit terms, it is true that Japan enjoyed latecomers’ advantages. In Britain the Marine Steam Turbine Company was set up as early as 1894 to put the marine turbine into practical service by sinking £25,000 pounds of capital in it, as will be detailed in Chapter 4. In Japan, as mentioned above, in 1911 Mitsubishi, together with the Imperial Japanese Navy, paid £3000 to purchase the contract for the manufacturing rights to the British marine turbine. Japan could thus reduce the initial uncertainties regarding this product innovation and acquire the commercial technology established in Britain with a relatively short delay at a cost of about one-eighth of what Britain had spent on the start-up of that product innovation.81 Such late technology imports could certainly be a very effective risk-avoidance strategy for Japan in product innovation, since they enabled the country to acquire commercial technology with minimal prior investment in R&D at a national level. In institutional structure/strategy terms, however, that effective riskavoidance strategy was only one element of the overall institutional structure intervening in the transfer of the marine turbine, because a fundamental element in that structure was, as described and analysed above, the risk-taking strategy employed by Mitsubishi in 1904. In addition, that early risk-taking strategy was further correlated with the deliberate, planned and intensive prior inquiries and selection employed by the Navy before 1911, which enabled it to take the risk-avoidance strategy which was effective through various kinds of connection with Mitsubishi. The connection extended beyond the formal orderer–manufacturer relationship in the market for naval vessel production, through the informal ties of technical personnel, and the indirect but critical link through a common educational background in engineering given by the Imperial University of Tokyo. Both risk-taking and risk-avoiding strategies were dual aspects of a single prototypical military-industrial-university complex spontaneously formed during the transfer process of the marine turbine. In this sense, the military-industrial-university complex provides a much more intricate context within which latecomers’ advantages could be


exploited than has been supposed from a mechanical application of that idea to the process of Japanese industrialization. It is only within this context that we can properly understand the strategy of the respective technology gatekeepers, the nature of the networks between them, and the interests they had in the transfer. Without the context, the independent behaviour patterns of these technology gatekeepers might lead observers to isolate fragments of their conduct and enlarge them to form or support an arbitrary theory, since such context-free fragments allow too large a degree of hindsight in interpretation. Within ‘success story’ accounts of Japan’s industrialization, technological innovations achieved by individual agents have tended to be viewed with this hindsight without scrutinizing the internal structure of the complex made up of the different behaviours of the agents involved, even when the wider importance of science and technology in industrialization has been fully understood. This is precisely the point where both the government-directed industrialization model together with its revised versions and ‘success story’ accounts based on the idea of the latecomers’ catch-up make little difference in that neither can be verified or falsified, due to this large degree of hindsight in interpretation. This is also the point where the new gatekeeper model of science and technology transfer and the new composite model of industrialization can be meaningfully integrated and its applicability identified. Namely, the technology gatekeepers in public and private spheres behaved independently of each other but were structurally combined through formal and informal ties and through direct and indirect connections to ensure successful transfer during the process of heavy industrialization. Only with this concrete integration of the new gatekeeper and the composite models can we understand the significance of the spontaneous militaryindustrial-university complex, which emerges as having combined with bold pragmatism to provide Japan with a path to assimilate Western science and technology.

Conclusion The above account of the roles played by the twin technology gatekeepers in the transfer of the marine steam turbine technology suggests that Japan’s swift success in the transfer was made possible by combining two contrasting strategies: 1. The well planned dual rationality observed in the behaviour of the Imperial Japanese Navy consistently demonstrated a risk-avoiding attitude, which may be called a waiting strategy. This attitude was manifested in avoiding huge test costs for commercializing the marine turbine by purchasing the manufacturing rights to this new technology which had almost reached the commercialization stage in Britain. The


same attitude penetrated into the earlier stage of the development of a new type marine turbine. During this stage the Navy carefully monitored the ‘relative advantages’ of the rival types of the turbine both by carrying out intensive prior inquiries of its own and by making use of the competition between private companies (Mitsubishi and Kawasaki) in the market for the production of naval vessels. 2. In contrast, the promptness of Mitsubishi in taking action even before the Imperial Japanese Navy made any official move displayed a risktaking attitude which may be called a kind of entrepreneurship. This attitude was manifest in the bold decision to build the Tenyomaru and the unprecedented risky investment in the construction of a turbine shop, and so on, despite the uncertainties accompanying the ongoing development of the marine turbine to achieve commercial acceptability. These actions cannot be explained as purely rational behaviour seeking profit based on the calculation of expected utility. 3. Steady flows of human resources provided by the Shipbuilding Department of the Imperial University of Tokyo gave both the public sector (Imperial Japanese Navy) and private sector (Mitsubishi) a common yardstick for mutual communication, and served as a unique social condition enabling the two technology gatekeepers to combine. The role played by the university provided an indirect but structural bond, together with formal and informal direct ties between the gatekeepers, to make up the prototype of a military-industrial-university complex in Japan within which the gatekeepers behaved independently of each other to converge in a swift technology transfer. This transfer process certainly enjoyed a latecomers’ advantage in that the Navy was able to employ a waiting strategy that allowed it to avoid risk. However, this should be understood as only one aspect of strategy that resulted from the overall institutional structure of the spontaneously formed military-industrial-university complex. For example, what made possible the Navy’s waiting strategy was the early fostering by the university of human resources which entered both the public and private sectors and could appreciate the importance of the ongoing product innovation in shipbuilding and marine engineering. (From this we can see that the waiting was not fortuitous, but a conscious monitoring of the progress of the latest product innovation.) Likewise, what made possible the dual rationality embodied in the Navy’s well planned strategy of utilizing the market for production of naval vessels was the technology base of private companies, particularly that of Mitsubishi, which was accumulated early through entrepreneurship. There are two important implications here. First, the technology transfer process endogenously generated the military-industrial-university complex, within which the composite institutional structure could become effective for the transfer. Second, the selection and adaptation of the technology and the


timing of its transfer were not determined by the technology gap automatically but determined strategically by the complex. Advanced technologies from Western countries certainly flowed into lowtech Japan at the turn of the century, but as with the transfer of the experimental tank, in this independent case too it was not a matter of a straightforward flow from a single source without intervention on the way. As the new gatekeeper model asserts, there was an intermediary process of getting across the technology gap. And that process needed thorough prior inquiries and entrepreneurial prior investment, both of which were made by the different technology gatekeepers. Neither the product life-cycle of technologies nor capital accumulation at a national level explain everything. Both risk-avoiding strategies in the public sector and risk-taking entrepreneurship in the private sector through the spontaneously formed militaryindustrial-university complex intervened in the process of the transfer. The initial industrialization of Japan owed a lot to government-directed arrangements for establishing infrastructure. In fact, the Ministry of Engineering and the Ministry of Education established university education for science and engineering in the early stage of Japanese industrialization and various government-run model factories were also set up and put into operation simultaneously. However, these arrangements could be effective only in connection with full-scale industrial activities of the private sector as well as those of the public sector including the military. Without this perspective for reconsidering the nature of Japan’s industrialization and penetrating the complex institutional structure behind it from the viewpoint of heterogeneous technology gatekeepers, the structural combination of seemingly opposite functions such as risk-taking and risk-avoiding strategies appears simply absurd. That is to say, the risk-taking entrepreneurship of the private sector coupled with the risk-avoiding strategies of the public sector can be detected and explained only in connection with the overall institutional structure of the military-industrial-university complex.82 Japan’s industrialization cannot be explained with single cover-all terms such as ‘catch-up’, or ‘latecomers’ advantage’. It must be reconsidered from the viewpoint of a parallel government-directed and privately directed industrialization, not a dichotomy between the two. This industrialization was significantly driven by a complex within which different independent agents playing functionally heterogeneous roles were complementary in introducing and assimilating the product innovation, and producing a new type of product at a national level. Of course, the new perspective presented in this chapter is based on the Japanese context of the technology transfer. Whether it holds true for the development of the ship revolution within a perspective of comparison with the British context of the ship revolution remains to be determined. An intensive inquiry into this question is left for Chapters 4 and 5.

4 ‘Spin-on’ and Latecomers’ Advantages Reconsidered: British Development and Japanese Transfer in Social Context

The function generally expected of the military-industrial-university complex has been ‘spin-off’ from the military to the private sector. A closer look at the social process through which R&D emerged during the ship revolution within a comparative perspective shows the need for a significant revision of that view. This chapter justifies the claim by focusing on the social context of ‘spin-on’ in the development of the marine turbine in Britain and its transfer to Japan at the turn of the century. The ‘spin-on’ here means the whole complex process through which commercial advanced technology is converted directly or indirectly to military use, a process quite opposite to ‘spin-off’. R&D here means the activity of continuously procuring and systematically organizing materials, human resources, information and money for the purpose of getting practical benefits from science and technology as well as satisfying intellectual curiosity. The history of corporate R&D is pivotal to investigation of the social origin of that new interaction between science, technology and industrial society which was just about to start at the time. However, previous literature on this subject (for example, the history of corporate R&D organizations in the chemical and electrical industries) seems often to have two shortcomings.1 First, the description rarely achieves a satisfactory explanation of the social process through which R&D emerged from professionalized science and technology.2 Second, most descriptions tend to focus on the rich but diffuse internal state of corporate R&D organizations, so that there is little systematic explanation of the relation of these organizations to the wider society in which they are set. As a result, we still know little about the particular mechanisms and timing through which R&D and its products came into being in industrial society. Thus a focused description and analysis of relevant mechanisms working both within and outside a specific emerging R&D organization during the ship revolution would be very valuable for explaining this dynamic relation of corporate R&D to the wider society. 81


From this standpoint, the development process of the marine turbine deserves special attention. There are two reasons. Since marine turbine development was based on mechanical engineering, a field that had been professionalized relatively early, this case should be suitable for elucidating the process through which R&D emerged from professionalized science and technology. In addition, since the R&D for the development of the marine turbine was intimately related to shipbuilding, which had a leading role in heavy industrialization, this case should provide a good example for revealing the dynamic process through which the new products of R&D came into being. C. A. Parsons, the Englishman mentioned in Chapter 3 who originally developed the marine turbine, is little known among the general public. But his reputation as a marine engineer was evaluated as early as the turn of the century as ‘approaching that of James Watt and George Stephenson.’3 By describing and analysing this pioneering case of R&D, this chapter attempts to shed new light on the social process of creation of R&D and the adaptation of its results during the ship revolution within the perspective of Anglo-Japanese comparison, and to obtain more general insights into the entire process. The chapter first describes and analyses the British social context of this R&D. It looks at the impact of the first public run of an experimental turbine ship to determine the social significance of the marine turbine. Then follows a description and analysis of the professional background of C. A. Parsons and its connection with the R&D of the marine turbine through ‘spin-on’ during the period leading to the first public run. The chapter will analyse the social process over the period from the first public run to the start of practical use of the marine turbine, focusing on the role played by the Royal Navy, which sustained the R&D from outside. The description and analysis of the social context of British R&D ends with a discussion of the sociological implications of the emergence of this pioneering R&D for an understanding of ‘spin-on’ and de facto ‘spin-off’ in a laissez-faire state. In light of the understanding of ‘spin-on’ and ‘spin-off’, particularly de facto, which is elucidated later in the chapter, the chapter proceeds to describe and analyse the Japanese social context of ‘spin-on’ by focusing on the behaviour of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard and its institutional arrangements for adaptation of the marine turbine originally developed in the British social context. It investigates a route for the recruitment of university graduates and the creation of R&D organizations, both of which provided the Japanese social contexts of ‘spin-on’ regarding the scientific element of the technology. And company-sponsored education for skilled workers will be investigated to give the social context of ‘spin-on’ regarding the technical element. Investigation of the company organization and regulation will follow to give the social context for integration of scientific and technical elements. Based on these four Japanese social contexts of ‘spin-on’, latecomers’ advantages in Japan’s industrialization will be reassessed, and how

‘Spin-on’ and Latecomers’ Advantages Reconsidered 83

‘spin-on’ could get significantly coupled with de facto ‘spin-off’ will be discussed with particular reference to the emergence of a new Mitsubishi type marine turbine. Finally, the chapter integrates the overall argument into the principle that similar structures often have different functions, to clarify the sociological implications of the argument developed in this chapter.

The social impact of the Turbinia On 26 June 1897, at Spithead off Portsmouth, the great Naval Review was held in honour of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. In the middle of the ceremony, suddenly an unfamiliar small boat broke into the lines of moored warships including representatives of almost every sea power, and began to run up and down flouting all rules and regulations of the occasion (see Figure 4.1). The authorities controlling the ceremony sent out a picket boat to stop this intruder, whose speed, however, made that of the picket boat appear ridiculous. After enjoying perfect freedom in running around, it slipped away.4 This was the first time people had witnessed the extraordinary capabilities of the marine turbine, by which the intruding boat was propelled. The boat’s name was the Turbinia, the first experimental turbine craft in the world. The man who directed everything leading up to this impressive demonstration

Figure 4.1

The Turbinia at Spithead

Source: Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Co. Ltd, ‘Turbinia’ brochure, n.d. (Newcastle-upon-Tyne).


was Charles A. Parsons. The event left a deep impression of audacity on the witnesses. But the impression made by its astonishing speed was far greater. The Times the next day remarked: ‘The patrol-boats which attempted to check her adventurous and lawless proceedings were distanced in a twinkling’.5 It didn’t take long for the fact to attract the attention of the general public. The following are extracts from newspaper and magazine articles reporting the event over the next six months (arranged in order of date). A very noticeable run was made through the lines of the fleet at the late Naval Review by the new torpedo-boat Turbinia … which at one time attained a speed of 34 knots [an hour]. We purpose further describing this remarkable vessel in an early issue.6 The Turbinia, in which the combined steam-turbine is fitted, can now claim to be the fastest vessel in the world … 7 One noticed with interest the very great lightness of this machinery in proportion to the power developed, and in this fact they had the reason why the Turbinia, although of such small dimensions, was absolutely … the very fastest vessel afloat.8 The result is highly satisfactory in the Turbinia, and there does not appear to be any reason why it should not be so in larger vessels also, provided that the power is great in proportion to the resistance to propulsive energy.9 The public response was not confined to Britain. In France L’Industrie carried an article entitled ‘Turbine à vapeur Parsons’. It states in connection with the steam turbine for generators: ‘on peut admirer à l’Exposition de Bruxelles, dans la section anglaise, un beau spécimen de ce moteur installé pour actionner directement une dynamo.’10 There was also a fuss centring around the Pall Mall Gazette’s report on an order for turbine ships by the Russian government. The Shipping Gazette of Lloyd’s List states: The Pall Mall Gazette has been a little too ‘previous’ in its announcement that the Russian Government had placed orders for two 38-knot steam turbine torpedo-boat destroyers with Mssrs. R. and W. Hawthorn, Leslie and Company (Limited). Our Newcastle correspondent writes to say that no such orders have been booked by the firm in question, nor has, indeed, anything been heard about them.11 And the public response was not confined to shipbuilding and shipping circles. The Daily Mail, a popular newspaper started in 1896, soon published an article under the fantastic heading ‘The Turbinia and the Turbine: Across the Atlantic in Forty Hours?’12 All these tell us how great Turbinia’s social impact was on ordinary people of the day, to whose eyes its first public run appeared an event whose importance went far beyond Britain and the boundary of shipbuilding and shipping circles.


The marine steam turbine was a product innovation but one distinct from popular consumer goods or goods that could expect a mass consumption future such as electric light and synthetic dyes, which came into being around the same time. This fact makes its widespread social impact still more noteworthy. It might be that the event coincided in a timely manner with people’s increasing interest in the revolution in transportation ‘from the old world to the new’ (Daily Mail),13 which the history of the Blue Ribbon, held by the liner making the currently fastest Atlantic crossing, symbolized. In other words, the event presumably provided a focus for people’s enlarged perspectives due to the revolution in transportation, and awakened their latent interest. On the other hand, this social impact had another aspect quite distinct from the general interest it aroused in ordinary people. The impact extended further to directly answering a more specific practical demand for achieving more speed and efficiency in ship propulsion as dramatically manifested by the Turbinia’s public run. The increase in the actual production of Parsons’ marine turbine measured in total output shows that the turbine rapidly answered this practical interest within just ten years of the public run of the Turbinia (see Figure 4.2). And Figure 4.3 shows the breakdown by ordering agent, which makes clear where this practical interest came from.

HP 5,000,000

4,000,000

3,000,000

2,000,000

1,000,000

1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910

0

Figure 4.2 Actual production of Parsons’ marine steam turbine, 1894–1910 Source: C. A. Parsons, ‘The marine steam turbine from 1894 to 1910’, Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, vol. 53, pt 2 (1911), pp. 79–134.

86 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace HP 6,000,000 5,000,000 4,000,000 3,000,000 2,000,000 1,000,000 0 Navy

Merchant marine

Figure 4.3 Actual production of Parsons’ marine steam turbine by ordering agent, 1894–1910 Note: Although ten units amounting to 29,200 HP were produced for yachts these are omitted here. Source: Calculation based on C. A. Parsons, ‘The marine steam turbine from 1894 to 1910’, Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, vol. 53, pt 2 (1911).

As this graph shows, the interest of naval powers in naval turbine vessels far surpassed private shipping companies’ interest in merchant turbine vessels. (In terms of total power output the orders for the former and those for the latter are in the ratio 5 : 1).14 It is no surprise that the potential of turbine ships appeared quite exciting to many naval powers, as they were preoccupied with a naval armaments race for global hegemony at the turn of the century when the long-standing Pax Britannica was beginning to fade.15 When we further break down the agents ordering naval turbines by nation, the naval powers placing such orders were the following sixteen countries: UK, Germany, US, France, Japan, Italy, Russia, Spain, Austria, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, China, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden (in order of actual production measured in terms of total output).16 The marine steam turbine developed by Parsons thus had a widespread and profound social impact on contemporary industrial society. The impact carried a social significance deeply rooted both in the general interest of ordinary people and in the practical interest of the military and the industrial sector, which should not be underestimated from our modern perspective, accustomed as we are to the product innovation of consumer goods for mass production and consumption. And the Turbinia’s public run gives us an important clue that enables us to investigate this significance and reconstruct its relevant social context. How can we characterize the ‘spin-on’ aspect from the private sector involved in the development of this marine


turbine? And what part did C. A. Parsons play in the development? The key to answering these questions lies in the timing of the Turbinia’s public run.

From professionalization to R&D: C. A. Parsons and ‘spin-on’ in the development of the marine steam turbine On 8 January 1894, C. A. Parsons applied for a patent entitled ‘Improvements in Mechanism for Propelling and Controlling Steam Vessels’. This application became Patent No. 394 on the marine steam turbine (see Figure 4.4). As this photograph shows, the patent was accepted on 8 February 1895. Thus the Turbinia’s public run in 1897 was an event that took place more than two years after Parsons obtained his patent. Counting the number of patents has provided an index to estimate the results of R&D.17 According to this traditional way of thinking, the Turbinia’s public run made after obtaining the patent may be taken for nothing more than a minor stage in the R&D. When we look at Parsons as a professional marine engineer within the context of the process of development of the marine turbine, however, the Turbinia’s public run comes to have another important meaning. Parsons’ first application for a patent on the steam turbine dates back to 23 April 1884 when he first applied for his Patent No. 6735 on the steam turbine. During the intervening ten years, the steam turbine had been used as a prime mover for generators. Based on various insights he had obtained from that use such as the upper limit of the blade rotation, the optimum ratio in terms of velocity of the blade to steam, and so forth, he proceeded on to the application for the marine turbine’s patent. His object stated in the application was ‘to economically obtain a higher speed from such vessels than is at present possible’.18 There is one important characteristic to be observed as to the nature of this application because Parsons’ handling of problems was significantly different from that of patent applicants until about 1850. Until about 1850, it was mainly the aristocracy and other amateurs with private means who had applied for patents for marine propulsion. According to Nathaniel Barnaby, who around 1860 surveyed shipbuilding-related patents taken out by these gentlemen and others under the old patent law,19 ‘they are not discoveries, but mere suggestions which the suggestor, or inventor (as he is called by courtesy), is unable or unwilling to embody in practical form’. (For example, a patent for ship propulsion to be effected by motion being communicated to a lever by the rising and falling of the waves.)20 What particularly distinguished Parsons from these gentlemen was his effort, as a professional, to put the accepted patent to a practical and public run (Turbinia’s). Based on the definition of professionalization given in Chapter 1, professionals here indicate those who simultaneously meet the following two requirements: (1) specialization – their work anticipates a reference group of qualified peers; and (2) vocationalization – they are able to make a proper living from their work.

88

Figure 4.4 Parsons’ Patent No. 394 on the marine steam turbine Source: Patent Records (kept by Newcastle-upon-Tyne City Library).


As for specialization, it is incontrovertible throughout the development of the marine turbine that Parsons’ development work was carried out in a way that meets this requirement. Well before getting the patent for the steam turbine, he became a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (founded in 1818) and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (founded in 1847), the two professional societies for engineers set up before 1850 in Britain. His affiliation with the Institution of Civil Engineers was in 1879 and that with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers was in 1880. Against this background, quite symbolically, he described himself as an ‘Engineer’ in his patent application for the marine turbine.21 To give his educational background, Parsons entered Cambridge University (St John’s College) in 1873 and graduated in 1877. The Tripos in engineering had not been established at this period – it started in 1894. As a result, he had no opportunity to obtain a degree in engineering. The Cambridge Mathematical Tripos, in which Parsons was the 11th Wrangler, had certainly begun in 1747. However, mathematics in the Mathematical Tripos was entirely different from the tools for experimental sciences and engineering that we usually imagine, since it was intended exclusively to provide training of the mind to produce an educated man. Isaac Todhunter, a mathematician at St John’s College, to which Parsons belonged, warned about the intrusion of experimental sciences into the university: ‘The experimenter, [like] … the poet, … is born and not manufactured.’22 Although the setting up of the Cavendish Laboratory in 1874 has been usually taken as a sign of the flexible adaptation of Cambridge to demands for the study of science and technology, as far as the qualification of engineers is concerned, its educational system was not flexible: even students of mechanics had to take Greek in order to graduate, a requirement which remained unchanged until 1919.23 James Stuart was invited to the first chair of the Engineering Department at Cambridge during Parsons’ stay at the university and is known to have equipped the mechanical workshop with a fitting shop, a smithy, an erecting shop, and a draughtsman’s office, together with several skilled mechanics in the university as late as 1879. Five years later, however, he described the lack of progress in university engineering education to the Royal Commissioners: He had ‘[on] only one occasion … found a man who had any knowledge of linear drawing’.24 Despite these facts indicating that there was hardly a university engineering world at the time, and therefore the opportunity for academic education was limited, Parsons kept publishing his works anticipating qualified peers belonging to professional societies as a reference group throughout his life (see Table 4.1). It was at the INA, the first British professional society for naval architects and marine engineers set up in 1860, that he read his first paper on the marine turbine.25 Speaking of vocationalization, it is also clear that he had a continuous opportunity to make a living from his engineering work. Ten years before his experiments using the Turbinia, he had already become a junior partner in

90 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace Table 4.1 Number of C. A. Parsons’ papers, by professional society, 1887–1929 Professional society INA North-East Coast Institution of Engineers & Shipbuilders Royal Society Institution of Mechanical Engineers Institution of Civil Engineers Institution of Electrical Engineers Royal Institution British Association Institute of Marine Engineers Institute of Metals Institution of Engineers & Shipbuilders in Scotland Institute of Physics International Mathematical Congress Iron & Steel Institute

Number 11 5 5 3 3 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1

Note: Collaborative papers are included, while patents and discussions at societies are omitted. Source: Based on Geoffry L. Parsons, Scientific Papers and Addresses of the Hon. Sir Charles A. Parsons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934), appendix C, pp. 250–3.

the firm of Clarke Chapman and Company (set up in 1864) and dissolved this junior partnership with the company in 1889 to set up the C. A. Parsons and Company, Heaton Works, which produced and sold both generators and steam turbines for generators. The company started with a work site of some two acres and 48 staff, where Parsons developed the first radial flow turbine and the first condensing turbine for generators. Thanks to the success of the condensing turbine in extending its market throughout Britain, the company expanded so much that by 1894, when the construction of the Turbinia was started, a drawing office, foundry, stores, boiler plant, and part of a new shop for the testing of machines had been built.26 Thus Parsons had already attained his status as a professional engineer before his development of the first steam turbine. This suggests that the professionalization (specialization and vocationalization) of an inventor provided a relevant social context in which the steam turbine was developed. As far as the development of the steam turbine for generators is concerned, this was true. However, in the development of the marine turbine, particularly the experiments undertaken by the Turbinia, he faced a quite different situation. The reason lay in how to reconcile Parsons’ R&D activities and his need to make a living from his specialized work (vocationalization). To be sure, the specialized experience in the production and improvement of generators and turbines for generators at the Heaton Works (for example, the world’s first condensing turbine generator supplied to the Cambridge


Electric Light Company in 1891) provided him with important insights necessary for the consecutive economical running of turbines.27 Since this was also indispensable to the marine turbine, this specialized prior experience was certainly a prerequisite for its development. On the other hand, the Heaton Works’ production and sale of generators and turbines for generators hardly produced profits on a scale sufficient to enable him to mobilize the company for the development of the marine turbine. The chief problem was that the development required him from the outset to construct an experimental turbine ship, the Turbinia, which cost £10,000. The total expenditure for the experiments is estimated to have amounted to more than £20,000.28 The income he got from his Patent No. 6735 on the steam turbine in the year before the experiments was £1500.29 From every point of view, the expenditure necessary for carrying out the experiments on the marine turbine was beyond his own and his company’s means. The solution Parsons found to this problem was to make an appeal for contributions to set up a new company designed to carry out the experiments using the Turbinia. The company was very different from usual in that it had no sales division of its own. The sole object of the company was ‘to provide the necessary capital for efficiently and thoroughly testing the application of Mr. Parsons’ well-known steam turbine to the propulsion of vessels’ (from the prospectus of the company).30 Almost the whole authorized capital of £25,000 was raised by issuing 480 private shares of £50 each to the shareholders, on which basis the Marine Steam Turbine Company was founded in January 1894.31 This capital composition means that it did not expect to enlarge its capital later and sought only to obtain successful results from the experiments by supplying the funds needed for the experiments alone. Parsons called this company a ‘syndicate’.32 Since the nature of the company was thus extraordinarily venture-oriented, it was naturally crucial for Parsons to explain convincingly the return to be expected from success in the experiments to the shareholders. He summarized the advantages claimed for the marine turbine over ordinary reciprocating engines in the following 13 points:33 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Increased speed Increased economy of steam Increased carrying power of vessel Increased facilities for navigating shallow waters Increased stability of vessel Increased safety to machinery for war purposes Reduced weight of machinery Reduced space occupied by machinery Reduced initial cost Reduced cost of attendance on machinery Diminished cost of upkeep of machinery Largely reduced vibration Reduced size and weight of screw propellers and shafting.


To prove these advantages, extensive trials had been started well before the Turbinia’s public run. For Parsons, these trials were critical to demonstrate the validity of such a huge prior investment. Brown & Hood Company of Wallsend constructed the Turbinia and C. A. Parsons and Company, Heaton Works produced the turbine to be installed in her. The vessel thus completed had its first trial run on 14 November 1894. Quite unexpectedly, however, the results of a series of trial runs disclosed the intrinsic problem of the marine turbine, which necessitated a completely fresh start. The problem related to the ‘increased speed’ and ‘increased economy of steam’. Despite 31 trial runs of the Turbinia made during the first two years, the results were far from proving the ‘increased speed’, because the best results for top speed were an ordinary 19.75 knots. (at 1780 rpm) The result was 37.5 per cent less on average than Parsons’ expectation.34 This disappointing result made him measure the shaft horsepower of the turbine installed to the Turbinia, by developing what we call today a torsionmeter. The measured output indicated 960 shaft horsepower, while the design output was about 2000 shaft horsepower. And yet, curiously, he found the propellers rotated at 2400 rpm exactly as designed.35 This meant that high-speed rotation of the propellers did not properly produce effective thrust. This also obviously prevented the ‘increased economy of steam’ from coming true. What happened was that a vacuum produced by the high-speed rotation of the propellers in the water wasted rotating energy. A paper read in 1895 at the Institution of Civil Engineers by John I. Thornycroft and W. S. Barnaby made Parsons realize that this phenomenon which R. E. Froude (the third son of William Froude) first called cavitation could be the cause of the trouble.36 The next step he took then was to confirm whether the core of the trouble lay in this phenomenon, by developing a model experimental apparatus for propeller rotation in the water. The apparatus could ingeniously take a photograph under the light from an arc lamp with a duration of illumination of 1/3000 of a second for each propeller revolution. An experiment with this apparatus clearly showed that the trouble was purely the result of cavitation (see Figure 4.5). Once the basic problem had been thus detected, his solution was quite simple and practical. First, he tried to determine by model experiments the most desirable shape of the propellers to avoid cavitation. Second, he enlarged the surface area of the propellers so as to secure the necessary total thrust. After full-scale ship experiments made by the Turbinia extending another half year, the following decisions were made: (1) the shape of the propellers should be 18 inches diameter and 24 inches pitch; and (2) three propellers on three shafts (nine propellers in total) should make the surface area large enough to get the necessary thrust. The results gained from the experiments based on these decisions were just as he had expected. A full speed trial of the Turbinia made on 1 April 1897 registered an average of 31.01 knots. The mean revolutions of the turbine were 2100 rpm and the


Figure 4.5 Cavitation experiment by C. A. Parsons Source: ‘Experimental apparatus shewing cavitation in screw propellers’, North-East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders, vol. 29 (1913), pp. 300–2, fig. 4.

steam consumption per indicated horsepower per hour was 15.86 pounds, which was less than that of the existing marine engines of the day.37 Two years had already passed since his patent for the marine turbine had been accepted. Only two months later, the Turbinia’s public run created the widespread sensation already described. Of course, wider practical use of the marine turbine required a full-scale comparative test of turbine ships and steamers, the development of astern turbines, cruising turbines, reduction gearing, and so on, which were accomplished later. As far as the initial process of emergence of R&D for the marine turbine is concerned, the above description and analysis make very clear the significance of the ‘spin-on’ aspect embodied by Parsons as a professional. The R&D presupposed a professional in marine technology, but the problem of how to reconcile the professional’s need to make a living from his work (vocationalization) and his R&D activities made it extremely difficult to fully sustain the R&D throughout the initial set-up phase. It was a venture business type of R&D (carried out at the Marine Steam Turbine Company) that solved this difficulty. In short, the R&D germinated within a professionalized science and technology, then it was transplanted to a separate venture business where it grew and produced the final fruits. In fact, in July 1897, immediately after the

94 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace Table 4.2 The organization of the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company in 1898 Director (1) Manager (1) Secretary (1) Cashier (1) Clerk (7) Clerk office boy (3) Linekeeper (1) Chief draughtsman (1) Draughtsman (10) Draughtsman office boy (2) Foreman (7) Shopkeeper (1) Assistant shopkeeper (1) Note: The numbers within brackets indicate numbers of persons. This number shows fluctuation from week to week. Here the number of persons is based on data for the week from 12 to18 October 1898. Source: Based on Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Co., Ltd, Staff Attendance Book No. 1, Weeks ended 12 October 1898–25 December 1901, Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Turbinia’s public run, the Marine Steam Turbine Company was reorganized into the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company, the first company in the world to produce and sell the marine turbine.38 Table 4.2 gives the organization of this company in the following year. All this suggests the importance of the private sector’s role in the initial setting up of R&D. The marine turbine was obviously a dual-use technology from its inception, as explained earlier, which has led many people to regard it as a product of ‘spin-off’ from the military sector. In contrast to this general view of dual-use technologies, it is clear that a ‘spin-on’ process can play a much greater role than expected, as shown above. Based on this, this usual view stressing the ‘spin-off’ aspect alone in the development of a dual-use technology should be revised. And yet, this is only half the story, because attention to the external factors of the R&D would illuminate in turn an aspect of ‘spin-off’ which is far subtler than could be expected based on the usual view of dual-use technologies. The key to understanding this subtler ‘spin-off’ story lies in the realities of the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company thus established.

The role of the Royal Navy: a de facto ‘spin-off’ story Manufacturers must invest 1.5 to 3 per cent of their gross sales in R&D to win in industrial competition. This was Parsons’ opinion about R&D.39 Let us


make an attempt to apply this principle to the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company, reorganized as a commercial concern in 1897. The total expenditure of the company for R&D in fiscal 1900 is estimated to have amounted to £10,435.40 If we apply the above principle to this company and assume that about 2 per cent of gross sales was spent on R&D, the sales of the company in fiscal 1900 would have amounted to 50 times as much as its total expenditure on R&D of the same year. That is to say, sales should have been no less than £521,950 in fiscal 1900. As we have already seen, the company’s commercial production of the marine turbine had just begun around that time. In reality, it is unthinkable that the company should have achieved such huge gross sales, amounting to more than twice as much as the first paid-up capital of the company (£240,000) at this initial stage in one fiscal year.41 In fact, according to the Dictionary of Business Biography, the company, after paying no dividend in its first six years, finally started paying one in 1904.42 The initial realities of this new commercial company would seem to have been very risky. Since the Marine Steam Turbine Company, the direct ancestor of this commercial company, was a non-commercial one without any sales as mentioned above, it can be readily imagined that its realities were still more risky. This argument is only a rough thought-experiment. But it highlights the difficulties Parsons and his companies faced, the problem that an R&D venture business could hardly support itself during the initial stages. Therefore, if Parsons applied his opinion about R&D to his own companies (corroborative evidence suggests the possibility is strong), there must have been some external support for the R&D of his companies. This was the role that the Royal Navy played. There are two phases in the Royal Navy’s relationship with the development of the marine turbine by Parsons. One is the phase following the Turbinia’s public run, the other the initial set-up phase of R&D up to the public run. Regarding the former, what is noteworthy in terms of support of R&D of the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company is that the company received an order for the main turbines for two torpedo boats, the Cobra and the Viper, from the Royal Navy in February 1898.43 This was the company’s first order for the marine turbine, and also the first time the marine turbine was put to practical use. Both vessels were small, about 300 gross tons.44 The order provided the company with a pioneering experience in the production of commercial marine turbines because that experience enabled the company to accumulate a know-how base for subsequently extending its business to the main turbines for larger naval vessels such as the Amethyst (3000 gross tonnage, 14,200 shaft horsepower), and huge ones like the Dreadnought (17,900 gross tonnage, 24,712 shaft horsepower). More than that, the order naturally provided the company with the first invaluable chance to recover its initial set-up investment. Since the Navy placed the order only about half a year after the setting up of the company, the order


was quite timely and enabled the company to recover some part of the initial investment. The Navy’s decision-making at this time was exceptionally quick. How was it that the Navy was able to make such a prompt decision? Was it because the social impact of the Turbinia’s public run was so great as to move the Navy to take rapid action? It seems reasonable to suppose that there were other additional factors involved, since Parsons wrote to his elder brother Lawrence immediately before the public run as follows: My Dear Lawrence … Sir W. H. White turned up unexpectedly last week and spent all one morning till 1: 30 looking at the machinery and the boat [the Turbinia] on the slip. He examined everything closely and expressed himself pleased … W. H. W. quite agreed with me that the new screws … ought to be superior to those on at the last trial. (16 February 1897)45 William H. White, referred to in the letter, was the first director of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors, established in 1883.46 He was known to be both a key supporter and reformer of the Royal Navy during his service: his ‘reputation and performances were such as to rehabilitate the Admiralty as an efficient department’.47 And this letter tells us that this key person in the Royal Navy had an interest in Parsons’ marine turbines before the public runs of the Turbinia. The point matches White’s later words as recorded in the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1906: acquaintance with the Parsons turbine went back to the year 1884, when it was very young, and hardly through its infantile troubles … Since that time he [White] had been continuously interested in the development of the turbine system, more particularly with regard to its application to marine propulsion … and he had been delighted, when he happened to mention the matter to Mr. Parsons early in 1894, to find that he had already started to work upon it.48 In addition, both John Durston, an Engineering Vice-Admiral of the Navy, and Philip Watts, who succeeded W. H. White as the second director of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors in 1903, had an equally strong interest in Parsons’ endeavour to apply the steam turbine to marine propulsion.49 The interest of those in the Navy who were responsible for both marine engineering and the architecture of naval vessels thus gave motivation to Parsons from without. We can see behind the exceptionally quick action of the Navy a social context that the Navy had kept monitoring for more than ten years the development process of the Parsons turbine in this informal way right from the start of its R &D to the public run of the Turbinia.


What this context means is significantly different from any formal organizational patterns of behaviour of the Navy such as that it planned to support Parsons’ endeavour and implemented the planned support at a particular date. Rather, a loose social relation based on human networks evolved into a contingent but mutually expectant relation between key persons in the Navy and Parsons, which ultimately resulted in the contract between orderer and manufacturer. We have seen in what a timely manner such patterns of behaviour subsequently supported the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company at a time when it was just set up as a commercial concern. In fact, these network relationships also played another crucial role in the initial set-up phase of the R&D until the public run of the Turbinia. The role R. E. Froude played prior to the public run tells us a great deal about this. R. E. Froude transferred the pioneering experimental tank (the Torquay tank), which had been constructed with financial assistance from the Royal Navy by his father William Froude in 1872, to Haslar near Portsmouth in 1886 (W. Froude suddenly fell ill and died in South Africa in 1879). Within only two months after the start of the Turbinia’s trial runs, Parsons wrote the following letter to R. E. Froude: Dear Mr. Froude … Have you, may I ask, made any progressive trials on resistance of a 100-ft. boat and 9-ft. beam at speeds from 20 to 30 knots? I have been reading Yarrow’s Expts. In Naval Architecture, 1883, and his experiments seem to indicate a considerable drop from the ‘cube speed’ curve above 21 knots. I wondered if any of your experiments went to show that this drop is continued. From all I know at present I am unable to judge this, but perhaps your experiments may fully clear up the question, and I should be very much obliged if you can enlighten me. (2 January 1895)50 The ‘boat’ Parsons refers to in this letter has the representative dimensions of the Turbinia. Since the results of the Turbinia’s trial runs were around the time far less than what Parsons had initially expected, the letter inquired about the possibility that hull resistance rather than the marine turbine was the cause of the unsuccessful results with regard to the speed range he aimed at. Froude’s response was instant: Dear Mr. Parsons, Many thanks for yours of the 2nd. I am much interested to hear of the progress of your steam-turbine torpedo boat. We have made experiments throughout the whole range of speed for a great number of forms of torpedo boats and ‘destroyers’ though none quite so narrow in proportion as you quote, viz. 100 ft. ⫻ 9 ft.10 beam is the maximum length ratio. The features of the curve of resistance are much the same for all forms, but more emphatic the greater the ratio of displt/length. Taking a sample form in which that ratio is smallest … We get such a curve


[see Figure 4.6] … For 100 ft. length … the speeds represented by a, b, c, being respectively, say, 11.5, 18 and 24 knots. The summit at B is well rounded, the descent towards C afterwards fairly straight, with a tendency towards concavity upwards … I expect it would continue … to a good deal over 30 knots for a 100-ft. boat. (7 January 1895)51 Froude’s answer meant that the coefficient of the hull resistance of a ship with representative dimensions approximating to those of the Turbinia gradually declines at speeds above 18 knots.52 This answer had two significant implications for the trial runs of the Turbinia. First, since the top speed of the unsuccessful trials exceeded 18 knots (19.75 knots), the hull resistance of the Turbinia made no particular contribution to the results. Second, there would also be no need to pay particular attention to the hull resistance in trial runs aiming at far greater speeds than that. These insights based on R. E. Froude’s information gave Parsons a basis to return to the problem of the propulsion system, which finally led to the detection of the cavitation problem mentioned above. Accordingly, the information Parsons gained from R. E. Froude was no less important than that he gained from the paper read by J. I. Thornycroft and W. S. Barnaby mentioned earlier. In other words, the human networking with R. E. Froude took the place of work which otherwise would have had to be performed at huge cost if Parsons had independently attempted to establish

R/v 2

B

C

A

Fr Figure 4.6 Resistance curve given to C. A. Parsons by R. E. Froude Note: Fr indicates the Froude number, the definition of which is given in Chapter 2. Source: Stanley V. Goodall, ‘Sir Charles Parsons and the Royal Navy’, TINA, vol. 84 (1942), pp. 1–16.


the basis for his return to the cavitation problem. As a matter of fact, quite apart from the cost of constructing the pioneering Torquay tank and its transfer to Haslar, the mere running expenses for the tank experiments at Haslar amounted to £1550 a year.53 Thus the Navy played two different roles through human networks, in the phases before and after the Turbinia’s public run respectively, by which roles it supported the development of the marine turbine by C. A. Parsons throughout. In the initial set-up phase of R&D up to the public run, the Navy kept monitoring the progress of R&D for the marine turbine, and at its crucial stage it gave Parsons indispensable experimental data, which would have been virtually impossible for him to obtain himself, enabling him to break through unexpected difficulties. In the phase following the public run, the Navy placed an order for the main turbines for naval vessels the moment Parsons had set up the commercial company after solving these difficulties. Although the Navy took action based on informal human networks rather than institutional or organizational decisions with legal effect, it played a decisive role in finding solutions to the difficulties in each phase of the R&D. ‘Spin-off’ usually means the ex post facto reconversion of completed results of military R&D to the private sector, but what we have here is a more complex type of ‘spin-off’. What the private sector got from this ‘spin-off’ was critical information for development (experimental data), and a chance to learn and accumulate basic information for commercial production (know-how), coupled with a timely income gained from prompt military orders for turbine vessels. This can be called a de facto ‘spin-off’, subtler than usual in that its effects did not directly spring from completed results but from ongoing informal support from the military given during the whole process leading up to complete development and commercial production. This type of ‘spin-off’ functioned to significantly decrease the uncertainty of the process during which R&D that had germinated from within a professionalized science and technology was transplanted to a separate venture business where it grew and resulted in full-scale commercial production.

Development in the laissez-faire British state The original agents of R&D, The Marine Steam Turbine Company and The Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company, thus coped with difficulties arising in each phase by changing their social forms. Insoluble problems within older forms of R&D obliged them to move to new ones to find solutions, whose process cannot be understood by a unidirectional ‘success story’ account. And where such a change of form could not find a satisfactory solution to a problem, external agents (the Royal Navy) intervened through human networks. This course of events sheds new light on the spontaneous social process of creating R&D in industrial society, whose sociological implications have yet to be


clarified. Based on the development of the marine turbine embodying the ship revolution,54 at least two sociological insights into the process can be gained: 1. R&D in industrial society of the turn of the century did not necessarily evolve directly from a professionalized science and technology starting around the late nineteenth century. Although R&D in the case of the marine turbine originated in a professional engineer, the germ of that R&D was transplanted to a separate venture business specializing in R&D to reconcile the vocationalized engineer’s need to earn a living and his R&D activities. In this sense, there was a leap in the social mechanism governing a professionalized science and technology and the process under which R&D was organized. 2. The agent initiating and fostering R&D in industrial society at the turn of the century could not bring it to completion without assistance from outside. There were unexpected difficulties that were beyond the power of the agent concerned to tackle, which were solved through support from an external agent (the Royal Navy in this case). In this sense, as far as we can see based on this pioneering case, the social process of creating R&D was not a closed system but an open system where the initial agent of R&D and other external agents dynamically interacted through the complex combination of ‘spin-on’ and de facto ‘spin-off’. Of course, this insight is based on a particular case in the ship revolution.55 However, there seem to be more general and far-reaching points that can be made. Despite a general understanding of contemporary Britain as a laissezfaire state, and the popular ‘success story’ account of turbine development ascribing everything to Parsons’ personal qualities, and the importance of ‘spin-on’ of the dual-use technology described and analysed above, the external dependency of the development was much stronger than expected. As mentioned above, at least half the story of the R&D for the marine turbine cannot be told without external support from the state, particularly from the Royal Navy. And yet, what is significant in this connection is that the support was given through informal human networks undetected in organizational and institutional decisions. Since the revolution in government at this formal organizational and institutional level during the second half of the nineteenth century has captured our attention, the subtler but important role of informal human networking has tended to be dismissed.56 This point indicates two critical perspectives for placing R&D in a wider social context. First, as far as the turn of the century is concerned, we need to revise the popular view that British science and technology advanced in a laissez-faire state. The term laissez-faire originated among French physiocrats in the eighteenth century, being reformulated in the late nineteenth century by a British sociologist, Herbert Spencer, as a key principle for asserting social evolution based on free individuals.57 Although Spencer’s tenet was soon severely criticized by contemporary sociologists, laissez-faire here indicates a


more general idea that opposes governmental regulation of or interference in every sphere of social activities. In the sense of such a general frame of action, laissez-faire still persisted in contemporary British society, against which background the revolution in government gradually proceeded. This revolution was usually carried out through tangible measures such as regulation and legislation, and so on, designed with due procedures by authorized public bodies such as Royal Commissions and Select Committees.58 In contrast, what the Parsons story strongly suggests is that quite separate from these organizational and institutional measures, there is also a need to look further into the informal social relations, where significant public support of R&D from the governmental sectors can be detected. It is because of the existence and importance of this informal level that the popular view of British science and technology, stressing its laissez-faire institutional settings, becomes no more than a rough approximation to reality and, therefore, slightly stereotypical. Second, for other countries of the day as well, we need a wider perspective that embraces the external dependency of seemingly closed corporate R&D, which can only become visible with due attention to informal social relations in addition to the institutional or organizational milieu. Based on these new perspectives derived from the description and analysis of the social context of this British R&D, an equivalent social context of ‘spin-on’ and de facto ‘spin-off’ in the transfer of the marine turbine to Japan will be described and analysed.

Science and technical practice in marine turbine technology Returning to the basic elements of marine turbine technology gives us an important step to answering the above question, particularly because the ‘spin-on’ and de facto ‘spin-off’ in the transfer must have included two different aspects of the technology. One was a scientific aspect, the other was a technical one including practical experience. Examining the anatomy of engineering knowledge, Walter G. Vincenti claims that the learning process ‘typically entails theoretical and experimental engineering research, plus transfer from science as well as direct trial’.59 Engineering activities are based on the knowledge transferred from science on the one hand and direct trial (that is, operation or proof testing) on the other, both of which are mediated by several other activities including design practice.60 Was knowledge transferred in the same way for the marine turbine? To what extent should we consider scientific and practical aspects respectively in understanding the social context of ‘spin-on’ (and de facto ‘spin-off’) in its transfer to Japan? The steam turbine is certainly recognized to be a product of thermodynamics: Parsons’ idea for the steam turbine emerged from the scientific insight that an elementary turbine using steam at high velocity and infinitesimal heat drop produces a 70–80 per cent internal efficiency, far exceeding


that of the traditional steam engine.61 But the scientific insight makes only half the story. The practical problems of design were equally crucial in the development of the steam turbine.62 Practical experience was as important as, and inseparable from, science in developing the steam turbine from the outset, and this is particularly striking in the case of the marine turbine. In the design of marine turbines, model experiments and the modification of design through simple tests could not provide the type and quantity of experimental information that came from full-size ship experiments as described and analysed above. The development of the steam turbine ‘designed in accordance with the conditions for the maximum thermodynamic efficiency’ and supposedly epitomizing the direct fruits of science, thus used practical design experience.63 Therefore, we should consider with equal attention technical practice as well as science-based expertise with respect to the social context of ‘spin-on’ (and de facto ‘spin-off’) in the transfer of the marine turbine technology.

The Japanese social context of ‘spin-on’ in transferring the scientific aspect of the marine turbine As for science-based expertise, Mitsubishi’s freedom from its dependence on British engineers by the turn of the century gives the first Japanese social context of ‘spin-on’. During the decade beginning in 1887, 18 Japanese engineers replaced their British counterparts in the firm. Among them was Ichiro Ezaki who was sent to Britain by the company in 1904 to learn the design manufacturing processes for marine turbines; Ezaki came to Mitsubishi in 1895.64 Even if these Japanese engineers did not go on themselves to make product innovations, they had enough scientific background to master the technology and foster its growth in Japan after 1910. For example, Kozo Yokoyama, later chief of the engine design section of Mitsubishi and known for his studies on the double reduction gearing of the marine turbine,65 wrote a report in English entitled ‘Parsons’ Combined Impulse and Reaction Turbine’ on 26 June 1912, while in Britain under company sponsorship.66 In the report Yokoyama described the major parts of the marine turbine, and discussed the optimum configurations of the nozzle and turbine blade in terms of the variables of state. Throughout, he demonstrated fluency in the terminology of contemporary thermodynamics. The strongest reason for his striking ability in handling the high technology of the day is that most of the Japanese engineers employed by Mitsubishi had completed university education before entering the company. As detailed in Chapter 3, Japan’s tradition of scientific and technical education began with the Engineering College established by the Ministry of Engineering in 1873, and continued with its successor, the Engineering College of the Imperial University established by the Ministry of Education in 1886. Both Ichiro Ezaki and Kozo Yokoyama graduated from the latter (in 1895 and 1907 respectively).67 The


above report by Yokoyama clearly shows that those graduates from the university who were employed by Mitsubishi found little difficulty in learning the scientific aspect of the marine turbine and in transferring it. Apart from this supply of human resources, Mitsubishi created an R&D organization at an early stage for the learning, assimilation, and improvement of the marine turbine, which gave another important Japanese social context of ‘spin-on’ in terms of the transfer of its science-based expertise. The marine turbine uses high-temperature, high-pressure steam. For example, the Tenyomaru, the first merchant turbine-driven ship built in Japan in 1908, used a saturated steam with a pressure of 170 psi as measured by the gauge at the turbine inlet as shown in Table 3.1 of Chapter 3.68 Domestic production of marine turbines naturally requires endurance testing of the materials for the turbine blades. In fact, Mitsubishi set up the Materials Testing Laboratory (Zairyo Shiken Jo) in 1904, which was an organization for R&D of various materials including those for the marine turbines. The laboratory started with the analysis and material testing rooms. In reality, the business of its early days was still mainly concerned with testing iron (steel) and fuels rather than carrying out R&D. The tests conducted in the analysis room were confined to colorimetry and quantitative analysis, far from the range of instrumental analysis employed nowadays. The tests made at the materials testing room were also limited to primitive or auxiliary tests, such as strength tests using a hydraulic 50-ton tester. Obviously, it took a certain period of time for the R&D organizations to prepare themselves for adaptation to the ship revolution by the systematic use of scientific knowledge.69 The Materials Testing Laboratory, an undoubtedly important Japanese social context of ‘spin-on’, was in its dawn thus nothing but attached facilities of the shop. This is well illustrated by the fact that both the analysis and materials testing rooms were located in a warehouse adjacent to a casting shop.70 Their equipment was also very unsatisfactory. Nichrome wires for heating and gases for a flash test were not available; alternatives (industrial alcohol and hydrogen, respectively) were used in the analysis room. Knowledge about methods of analysis was insufficient; for example, ‘the only reference available was a translation of a book on quantitative analysis.’71 The materials testing room also suffered from similar inadequacy; its only equipment was the hydraulic 50-ton tester mentioned above. In early 1906, this Materials Testing Laboratory was expanded after its move to the place where the Mitsubishi Club buildings had stood. With the move a new gas analyser for ground testing of boilers was installed. In 1908, the organizational role of the Materials Testing Laboratory within the company was first defined so that the laboratory was put under the control of the engine design engineer. It was not until this time that the laboratory was given administrative authority. With this newly given authority, the analysis room was upgraded to become the analysis unit in 1908; the materials testing room was upgraded to become the materials testing unit in 1911.


In 1912, the Materials Testing Laboratory moved to a new two-storey brick building and was further expanded to include a microscopic study laboratory for metallography. The situation remained unchanged until 1916, when it moved once again to a three-storey concrete building and became so largescale as to be described as ‘the biggest research and development section of a private company of those days in Japan.’72 During the period of expansion, new equipment was steadily added, including a heavy oil ignition point tester, a viscosimeter, a furnace for testing fire-resistance and a furnace for elementary analysis of fuels, for the analysis unit. During the same period, the materials testing unit also installed a connector to the town gas supply as well as an additional new oil hydraulic 50-ton tester. These facts indicate how rapidly equipment and facilities for R&D were introduced into the laboratory.73 According to the Annual Report of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, the budget allotted to the Materials Testing Laboratory was 878.62 yen for 1906, which rose to 55,105.00 yen for 1916. This means that the laboratory’s expenditure expanded about 60-fold within a decade. Even if the change of currency value during the period is taken into consideration, the above estimate of expansion rate scarcely changes.74 We can observe a similar trend in the employees of the Materials Testing Laboratory. Table 4.3 shows the increase in the number of employees by unit during this period. Setting up the organization for R&D thus required a huge start-up investment in both material and human resources simultaneously, resulting in the creation of a social context of ‘spin-on’ for the transfer of science-based expertise. In fact, this daring initial investment by Mitsubishi in R&D organizations manifested in the Materials Testing Laboratory subsequently became effective in a particular ‘spin-on’ relevant to the assimilation and improvement of the marine turbine. In a striking example of the firm’s technological maturation

Table 4.3 Increase in the number of employees by unit at the Materials Testing Laboratory, Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard

1904 1906 1908 1912 1916

Analysis

Materials testing

Microscopy

Total

2 2 4 5 13

1 3 3 3 6

0 0 0 1 2

3 5 7 9 21

Source: Based on Mitsubishi Jukogyo Nagasaki Kenkyujo Gijutsu Hokoku (Technical report of the Nagasaki Research Institute of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Company), no. 15 (1966) (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives), p. 35.


achieved within the R&D organization, Ichiro Itaka, an engineer at the Nagasaki Research Institute (Nagasaki Kenkyujo) of Mitsubishi, invented Itaka metal for turbine blades in the 1920s. The Nagasaki Research Institute, formally established in 1918, was an offshoot of the Materials Testing Laboratory. And his invention made at the institute can be seen as the beginning of Japanese self-reliance for materials and design in the development of steam turbine technologies. The selection of metals for turbine blades is one of the most critical elements of steam turbine technologies, affecting durability. Itaka metal showed equal or superior characteristics when compared with contemporary foreign metals, such as Monel metal (see Table 4.4). In 1919, at the instigation of the Nagasaki Research Institute, Itaka began researching metals to replace foreign metals. Monel metal contained about 70 per cent nickel, but nickel was extremely scarce and expensive in Japan. In contrast, Itaka metal contained less than six per cent nickel. Instead it contained more than 80 per cent copper, which had long been relatively abundant in Japan.75 Thus, the company’s organization of a discrete research institute generated by the early 1920s Japanese self-reliance in research, design and production of marine turbines, a technology that had originally been transferred intact from Britain through commercial entrepreneurship as described and analysed in Chapter 3. This early preparation of Mitsubishi for adaptation to the ship revolution enabled it to develop a new type of the marine turbine (the Mitsubishi type to be mentioned later), which gave an independent channel for assimilating and improving the technology.76

Table 4.4 Characteristics of foreign and domestic metals for turbine blades

Characteristics Tensile strength (kg/cm2) Yield point (kg/cm2) Elastic limit (kg/cm2) Elongation (per cent) Shrinkage (per cent) Hardness (Brinell)

Itaka metal (domestic) 63 40 24 30 35 180

Monel metal (foreign) 63 31.5 25 47 70 190

Note: The Brinell scale is a measure of hardness. It is given as s/l, where s is the surface area of an indentation in a material caused by an indenter (5 mm or 10 mm in diameter) and l is the load given to the indenter (usually 500 kg or 3 tons). Source: Kozo Yokoyama, ‘Mitsubishi Juko Shashi Genko’ (A manuscript of the history of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Ltd), n.d. (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives), p. 55.


Industrial education within the company What about the social context relevant to the technical aspects of ‘spin-on’? Industrial education including practical experience gained within Mitsubishi provided a unique social context. Marine turbines, which use steam under high temperature and high pressure, require precise processing (for example, the turbine blade required accuracy to within one-tenth of an inch in relation to the casing to minimize the loss of steam).77 In the words of a standard history of Japanese industrial training ‘to leave the work in the hands of [traditional] skilled workers [most of whom could not read blueprints] became unsatisfactory; instead precise work based upon blueprints became necessary’.78 The Mitsubishi Industrial Preparatory School (Mitsubishi Kogyo Yobi Gakko), established in 1899, played an important role in training traditional types of skilled workers in-house to meet such requirements and providing practical experience with the new technology. According to Hisaya Iwasaki, president of Mitsubishi, the aim of this school was ‘developing knowledge to be applied to engineering, and fostering the basis for mastering shipbuilding in the future’ among those who had completed ordinary primary school (jinjo shogakko) or had an equivalent background.79 The five-year course (later reduced to three years) included English, chemistry, arithmetic, algebra, drawing, physics, geometry, applied mechanics and the theory of the steam engine.80 The first principal of the school was Heigoro Shoda, manager of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard. The students paid no fees and, after 1905, had the opportunity to attend a further course of study after graduation (four years at first, later reduced to three). Here students pursued both practical work on the production process (on a salary) and advanced education in English, mathematics, mechanical engineering, strength of materials, and hydrodynamics. Students also chose an elective course in naval architecture, marine engineering or electrical engineering according to the focus of their practical work.81 By creating a new technical school in response to new technologies, Mitsubishi expressed its intention to upgrade the traditional apprenticeship (kojo toteisei) to a training programme grounded in theory as well as practice. Despite the relatively early establishment of universities in Japan, government-sponsored industrial education (jitsugyo kyoiku) for the professional training of skilled workers was not instituted at the same pace.82 Thus private companies played a major role in meeting the demand for secondary industrial education in Meiji Japan. By 1912 there were 7588 practical schools (jitsugyo gakko), supplementary practical schools (jitsugyo hoshu gakko), and apprentices’ schools (totei gakko) under the control of the Ministry of Education. A series of laws, ordinances and subsequent revisions helped to define practical education: the regulation of supplementary practical schools (Jitsugyo Hoshu Gakko Kitei) and apprentices’ schools (Totei Gakko Kitei) in 1893; government subsidies for


practical education ( Jitsugyo Kyoikuhi Kokko Hojo Ho) and regulation for the training of teachers for practical schools (Kogyo Kyoin Yosei Kitei) in 1894; the establishment of the Bureau of Practical Education (Jitsugyo Gakumukyoku) in the Ministry of Education in 1897; and the Practical School Act ( Jitsugyo Gakko Rei) in 1899 among others. However, in 1912 more than 70 per cent of the government schools taught agricultural methods (5572 schools), while engineering schools represented a mere 4 per cent (318 schools). Industrial schools and supplementary industrial schools accounted for only 7 per cent (27,963) of the students.83 Private companies compensated for this shortage of secondary industrial education by providing several types of educational programmes: part-time job training and academic study for apprentices, part-time education for skilled workers, and full-time secondary education in company schools.84 The Mitsubishi Industrial Preparatory School was one of the best of these full-time secondary industrial educational institutions. Keigo Makino, a professor of the Advanced Industrial School of Tokyo (Tokyo Koto Kogyo Gakko, established in 1881) inspected the Mitsubishi Industrial Preparatory School in 1906 and reported his findings to the Ministry of Education: ‘One could call the school … a secondary industrial school (jikka chugakko) … comprising five classrooms, one lecture hall, one teachers’ room, one drawing room and one scientific instruments room, and with a potential for giving important guidance for the Japanese educational world.’ He also commented that ‘The school is extremely promising for the future of Japan.’85 The graduation of the school’s first students coincided with Mitsubishi’s introduction of the marine turbine in 1904. If the skilled training provided by the Mitsubishi Industrial Preparatory School was a prerequisite for mastering the technical aspects of the marine turbine, then one would expect to find a relatively large percentage of the school’s graduates assigned to the engine section, which introduced the marine turbine. The actual numbers of preparatory school graduates assigned to the shipbuilding and engine sections from 1904 to 1914, as listed in the Annual Report of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, bear this out. In 1904, for example, when the first class graduated, 11 graduates were assigned to the engine section of Mitsubishi, while none went to the shipbuilding section. Over the period 1904–14, when the domestic production of the marine turbine began, over 50 graduates went to the engine section on average, compared with fewer than five, on average, to the shipbuilding section. Throughout the period, the number of graduates from the preparatory school sent to the engine section far exceeded the number assigned to shipbuilding (the total number of personnel working in the engine section averaged 3267 for the 11-year period; for shipbuilding, the average was 3578).86 Among the various sections of the shipyard, the drawing office (Seizu Sho) was the one with the highest proportion of graduates from the school among its employees, an average of 60 per cent during the period. But this


does not mean that the drawing office required greater technical abilities than did the engine section.87 The sheer quantity of blueprints of different sorts drafted for Mitsubishi’s large product line simply required a large number of graduates from the Mitsubishi Industrial Preparatory School, all of whom had both technical knowledge and the ability to draw. Graduates also often favoured employment in the drawing office because ‘the graduates in the drawing office are able to look forward with considerable confidence to becoming a director without hard work at the production process’.88 In spite of the drawing office’s attraction for graduates, the higher ratio of graduates from the school assigned to the engine section rather than to shipbuilding suggests that the engine section posed greater technical requirements during production. Ichiro Ezaki, the head teacher of the school, who was responsible for the technical ability of graduates from 1899 to 1920, was also director of the engine design section.89 In these respects, the Mitsubishi Industrial Preparatory School provided the background necessary for skilled workers to learn the technical aspects of the new marine technology. In fact, some of the first graduates of the Mitsubishi Industrial Preparatory School went on to contribute to the design for the marine turbine introduced in 1913 in the Anyomaru, the first Japanese merchant turbine ship with a single reduction gearing.90 In addition to formal education in science given at university, company-sponsored technical education, which was full-time and free from company-directed career choices (the graduates of the Mitsubishi school were able to go off to other companies), provided the background for those who learned the new technology, which became a unique social context relevant to the technical aspect of ‘spin-on’.

Invention within the organization The transferred technology took root in Mitsubishi, where these backgrounds – scientific, technical and practical – were integrated in full-scale industrial activity. And Mitsubishi’s institutional arrangements for this integration of scientific and technical aspects provided another important social context of ‘spin-on’. This is particularly because Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, as a limited partnership, was a for-profit corporation and its internal system was designed not only to educate its workforce, but also to continuously accumulate know-how to help the new technology take root in the company. Most importantly, a regulation for all ‘employees of the Mitsubishi Shipyard’ was issued in 1907, which was just before the introduction of the Parsons turbine. It reads: It is not proper that employees obtain patents in their name while employed by the company. Hereafter, in such cases, employees should present their inventions and designs to the company to get the approval of the company before applying for patents, and shall let the company use them


without fees while patent rights and design rights hold good … If those patents prove to be serviceable to the businesses of the company, the company will give due rewards to the patentees (No. 37, 13 February 1907).91 By claiming proprietorship of all employees’ patents and inventions, Mitsubishi efficiently accumulated expertise in the form of potentially profitable patents, whether scientific or technical, by no means the least significant benefit of its extensive investment in education. Employees subsequently presented all designs, modifications and inventions to the company, whether or not they were patented (see Table 4.5). Table 4.5 Main patents and inventions in Mitsubishi after the company regulation on inventions and patents Patentees or inventors

Nature of patents or inventions

Patent no.

Furnace for casting

8672

Low pressure casting process Compression casting process Water feed for boilers Screw cutter

8709

1911

Oshiro Hayashida (engineer) Oshiro Hayashida Oshiro Hayashida Oshiro Hayashida Kumezo Ito (engineer) Kumezo Ito

1911

Kumezo Ito

1912

Kumezo Ito

1914

Ichiro Ezaki (engineer) Yoshimatsu Kawasaki (foreman) Yoshimatsu Kawasaki Yoshimatsu Kawasaki

Year 1907

1907 1907 1907 1911

1914

1914 1914

Screw cutter with multiple shafts Precision protractor Ship steering gear Spiral super heater

Foreign patents

10960 6824 2007

UK, US, France

20610

21061 21476

France

26540

Joggled frame bevelling machine Frame bending & bevelling machine Bending stand

Source: Mitsubishi Sha-Shi Kanko Kai (ed.) Mitsubishi Sha-Shi (The history of the Mitsubishi Company) (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1980), vol. 21, p. 954, p. 1088, pp. 1327–8, p. 1343, p. 1373; vol. 22, pp. 1663–4; vol. 23, p. 2204, p. 2247.


It was one year after Mitsubishi’s introduction of the Parsons turbine to Japan that it formalized the organization of the company, making the role of every employee fully explicit based on the hierarchical authority given to respective roles (see Table 4.6). As the organizational integration of expertise took root at Mitsubishi based on these systematic institutional arrangements, the desirability of ‘more technological advancement’ among skilled workers became obvious.92 A combination of the three Japanese social contexts of ‘spin-on’ – an independent route for recruitment of university graduates, the creation of R&D organizations, and the provision of company-sponsored education for skilled workers – provided a necessary condition for the introduction of both scientific and technical aspects of the marine turbine. The limited partnership, with the above-mentioned organization and regulation, played a role in integrating the two aspects and getting the technology to take root within the company, and became the fourth Japanese social context of ‘spin-on’. Table 4.6 The organization of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, as set out in 1908 Manager (Shocho) (1) Assistant Manager (Fukucho) (2) Acting Assistant Manager (Fukucho Kokoroe) (4) Liaison Officer (Tsushinyaku) (1) Cashier (Kaikeiyaku) (1) Budget Planner (Yosan Gishi) (1) Engine Design Section (Kikan Sekkei Gishi): Drawing Office (Seizu Sho) (?) Material Testing Laboratory: Test Room (Zairyo Shiken Shitsu): (3) Analysis Room (Bunseki Shitsu): (4) Hull Design Section (Zosen Sekkei Gishi): Drawing Office (Seizu Sho) (?) Experimental Tank (Shiken Suiso Kakari) (12) Electric Machine Design Section (Denki Sekkei Gishi) (?) Labour Management Section (Kintai Shuji/Torishimaricho) (2) Building Section (Kenchiku Kata) (35) Dock Section (Senkyo Bu) (264) Engine Section (Kikan Koba) (3399) Shipbuilding Section (Zosen Koba) (4945) Note: The numbers within brackets indicate the number of persons. According to the Annual Report, 1908, the total number in the Drawing Office in 1908 was 56 (data classified into Hull Design Section and Engine Design Section are unavailable). Source: Annual Report of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, 1908; Mitsubishi Jukogyo Nagasaki Kenkyujo Gijutsu Hokoku (Technical report of the Nagasaki Research Institute of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Company), No. 15, pp. 23–5.


The emergence of the Mitsubishi type and the process of de facto ‘spin-off’ Owing to these four relevant social contexts of ‘spin-on’, which were initiated after heavy prior investment and organizational and institutional change, Mitsubishi was able to be an effective and independent agent in the transfer of the marine turbine. Of course, the fact that Mitsubishi was a large-scale company enabled it to make such a heavy prior investment. As Tables 4.2 and 4.6 show, the human resources of Mitsubishi were on a much larger scale than those of the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company which supplied the original marine turbine. In addition, even calculating in terms of the contemporary exchange rate, which was quite disadvantageous to the Japanese yen, Mitsubishi had more capital than the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company. When established in 1897, the capital of the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company, calculated in terms of the contemporary exchange rate, was about 4.92 million yen and that of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard was 6 million yen, as recorded when it was reorganized as a limited partnership in 1893.93 In this respect, Japan’s backwardness in industrialization had an advantage supposedly similar to the ‘advantages of backwardness’ in the context of the size of industrial enterprises: ‘The more backward a country’s economy, the more pronounced was the stress in its industrialization on bigness of both plant and enterprise.’94 However, as far as the above four Japanese social contexts of ‘spin-on’ prepared by Mitsubishi are concerned, that advantage is clearly distinct from the ‘advantages of backwardness’ in nineteenth-century Europe in the context of technological borrowing from the private sector in one country by the governmental one in another with a supply of capital. The aforementioned advantage of Japan revealed itself in a technology transfer from a private company in the West to a company in the East, whose role included various institutional and organizational arrangements and their adaptation as mentioned above and, therefore, was beyond mere supply of capital.95 In addition, what was important in the ‘spin-on’ by Mitsubishi was not only technological borrowing but also technological adaptation and improvement, and the creation of a new type of technology. And within this later ‘spin-on’ process leading to the creation of the new type of technology there was a subtle interplay between Mitsubishi and the governmental sector, particularly the Imperial Japanese Navy, which made this process a complex combination of ‘spin-on’ and de facto ‘spin-off’ in Japan too. Nothing illustrates these features better than the factors contributing to the emergence of a new Mitsubishi type marine turbine. The Mitsubishi type was established in 1924 when Mitsubishi constructed the Aomori-Hakodate ferryboat Tsugarumaru, the first vessel propelled by this type. This was a ship of 3432 gross tons and its maximum output was 5500 shaft horsepower, which was achieved by the Mitsubishi type with a


single reduction gearing. What was remarkable with this first Mitsubishi type was that it completely departed from the Parsons turbine in the specialized production of which Mitsubishi had accumulated rich experience over a long period since its first transfer to Japan in 1908. The first official reference to this departure dates back to 1920. On 17 July 1920, Hyo Hamada, the manager of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, submitted a secret document to the president and managing director of the Mitsubishi head office in Tokyo, in which he strongly called for technological cooperation with turbine makers other than those producing the Parsons turbines in order to develop a new Mitsubishi type. It reads: We have been making a strenuous effort to establish the Mitsubishi type. However, due to the critical scarcity of information on models to be consulted in Japan, our research is about to face a serious deadlock … To bring this deadlock to an end, it is strongly advised that the right of licence production of the Rateau turbine should be urgently purchased because this type contains critical information for the completion of the Mitsubishi type.96 The Rateau turbine he referred to in this document was originally patented in France in 1891, and then manufactured by Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company Ltd in Britain. The point in understanding his recommendations is that it meant not only a change in turbine makers to cooperate with but also a drastic change in the type of the turbine itself. The Rateau turbine was an impulse turbine, while the Parsons turbine, in the specialized production of which Mitsubishi had had long experience, was the reaction type. The impulse turbine directly uses the impulse of steam, while the reaction type also uses the reaction of steam guided by fixed vanes.97 Thus Hamada’s secret request to purchase the right to produce the Rateau turbine under licence in order to establish the Mitsubishi type of marine turbine entailed a drastic change of principle governing the working of the turbine. There was a reason for making this drastic proposition at this particular time. Although we know today that both the impulse and the reaction turbines have eventually become complementary in their performance, in the period around 1920 the impulse turbine came to prove its own advantages over the preceding Parsons reaction turbine. And information on these advantages became available based on successful results achieved by various other impulse turbines such as the De Laval type first patented in Sweden in 1889, the Curtis type first patented in the US in 1896, the Zölly type first patented in Switzerland in 1899, and so on. Kozo Yokoyama, then chief engineer in charge of planning of the Engine Design Section of Mitsubishi, appended a technical report to Hamada’s secret document, which proclaimed at the outset that ‘The advantages of the impulse turbine have been widely proved.’98 The basis for this statement can be summarized


into the following disadvantages of the reaction turbine compared with the impulse one, each of which was detailed in his report.99 1.

2.

3.

Disadvantages in terms of design (a) More complicated in structure and heavier (b) Larger steam consumption at lower speed Disadvantages in terms of materials and production method (a) Easily affected by stress due to centrifugal force produced by the rotation of the blades (b) Many problems due to blades becoming detached Disadvantages in terms of operation (a) Much more caution needed in handling the astern turbine (b) Inappropriate for the use of superheated steam at high pressure and temperature

At the same time, there was a different but equally important factor other than these technical disadvantages that contributed to Hamada’s pressing in the secret document for the adoption of the impulse turbine in establishing the Mitsubishi type, which Yokoyama’s technical report endorsed. That was the changing demand from the Imperial Japanese Navy for the types of turbine to be adopted for its naval vessels. As described and analysed in Chapter 3, there was an orderer–manufacturer relationship between the Navy and Mitsubishi in the market for naval vessel production, in which Mitsubishi had been accumulating experience in the specialized production of the Parsons turbine. In the same market, the rival Kawasaki Shipbuilding Company had been accumulating experience in the specialized production of the Curtis turbine. Around 1920, this long-standing division of the market between the demand for Parsons (reaction) turbines produced by Mitsubishi and that for Curtis (impulse) turbines produced by Kawasaki was becoming diversified by a new demand from the Navy for the production of various types of impulse turbine. In particular, as Table 3.4 in Chapter 3 shows, the new demand from the Navy for the Gihon type and the Zölly type (both impulse) turbines appeared around this time on the way to the establishment of the Navy’s own Kanpon type turbine. This meant that Mitsubishi could expect new demand from the Navy for the additional production of impulse turbines for naval vessels. Coincidentally, Hamada’s secret document calling for attention to the impulse turbine was drafted immediately after an additional budget for fully implementing the plan for an eight battleships–eight heavy cruisers fleet, originally conceived in 1907, was passed at the 43th special session of the Imperial Diet in June 1920. This plan eventually failed to be carried out due to the Washington naval disarmament treaty concluded for the purpose of controlling the total displacement of battleships and cruisers of major naval powers, which was enacted in 1922. However, it did not seriously affect the Navy’s


demand for the production of smaller support naval vessels such as destroyers, not to speak of the demand for other ships (heavy cruisers) to be constructed within the limits set by that treaty. This new demand for private companies’ production of impulse turbines for smaller support naval vessels first resulted in an order, given to the Ishikawajima Shipbuilding Company, for the production under licence of the Zölly turbine for the destroyer Sumire, whose construction was started in November 1920 and completed in March 1923.100 In fact, Yokoyama’s technical report appended to Hamada’s secret document underlined this new demand from the Navy for the production of ‘destroyers making possible a speed of nearly forty knots’. His report claimed an urgent need to switch from the production of reaction turbines represented by the Parsons turbine to impulse turbines, based on that new demand. It states: ‘Now Japan’s shipbuilding world is about to enter the age of turbine ships. In particular, each shipbuilding company is beginning to produce various types of turbines in compliance with new demand from the Navy. In this situation, Mitsubishi cannot persistently stick to the production of the Parsons turbine alone.’101 In the ‘spin-on’ process of establishing the new Mitsubishi type, there was thus an intricate de facto ‘spin-off’ element effected through the market for production of naval vessels. Mitsubishi was obliged to become sensitive to the changing demand from the Navy, which in turn made Mitsubishi turn its attention to impulse turbines in establishing the new Mitsubishi type, departing from its long experience in the specialized production of the Parsons reaction turbine. As a matter of fact, after the establishment of the Mitsubishi type all-impulse turbine in 1924, every marine turbine produced at Mitsubishi for Navy vessels was, with only two exceptions, an impulse turbine (the Kanpon type developed by the Navy mentioned in Chapter 3, which will be described and analysed in greater detail in Chapter 6). These two exceptions were the hybrid turbines with impulse high-pressure stages and reaction low-pressure stages produced by Mitsubishi for the heavy cruisers Furutaka and Aoba completed in 1925 and 1927 respectively. This type was a preliminary intermediate type produced by Mitsubishi on its way to establishing the Mitsubishi all-impulse type, whose production for naval vessels dated back to 1918 when the destroyer Minekaze, propelled by that intermediate type, was completed. And the new all-impulse Mitsubishi type first installed in the Tsugarumaru in 1924 resulted from this prior experience of Mitsubishi in the production of that preliminary intermediate type.102 That ship also first adopted the above-mentioned Itaka metal – developed by Ichiro Itaka of the Nagasaki Research Laboratory – for its blades in the highpressure stages.103 In these respects, the four Japanese social contexts of ‘spin-on’ coupled with this de facto ‘spin-off’ from the Navy gave an independent back-up for the turbines that the Navy was developing. The marine turbine itself was


developed through ‘spin-on’ and de facto ‘spin-off’ in Britain as mentioned earlier. Since the Japanese ‘spin-on’ and de facto ‘spin-off’, in contrast, gave rise to the separate development of other types, such as the new Mitsubishi type with Itaka metal for its blades, as a back-up in case the Kanpon type was not successful, the function of ‘spin-on’ and de facto ‘spin-off’ was significantly different from that observed within the British social context. The different social contexts in Britain and Japan thus gave rise to significantly different functions of ‘spin-on’ and de facto ‘spin-off’, but in a structurally similar process that is detectable in both countries.

Conclusion What can we learn from the Parsons-Mitsubishi story? 1. Britain and Japan shared the feature of de facto ‘spin-off’ coupled with ‘spin-on’ to a considerable extent in the development of the marine turbine, and the same combination applied in Japan in the transfer of the turbine. In particular, de facto ‘spin-off’ effected through the market for naval vessel production provided the main support for the development of the world’s first commercial production of marine turbines made by the private sector in Britain, and its transfer to Japan and the subsequent creation of a new type made by the private sector in Japan. 2. On the other hand, the results of the de facto ‘spin-off’ were completely different. In Britain the de facto ‘spin-off’ from the Royal Navy functioned to solve the difficulties of reconciling the need to earn a living (vocationalization) of the inventor Parsons and his activities for R&D in a laissez-faire state. This enabled him, together with indispensable information and a chance to accumulate know-how provided by the Royal Navy, to produce the original Parsons turbine, which was adopted by the Navy. In Japan, by contrast, the de facto ‘spin-off’ from the Imperial Japanese Navy functioned to promote the switch from the original Parsons turbine to a new type. This new type served as a back-up for an earlier type developed and adopted by the Navy. 3. Both Britain and Japan shared a ‘spin-on’ aspect effected by the Marine Steam Turbine Company/Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company and Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard respectively. This destroys to a significant extent the stereotype of dual-use technology stressing the ‘spin-off’ aspect alone which is coupled with that of government-directed industrialization and its revised versions in explaining heavy industrialization. 4. On the other hand, the ‘spin-on’ aspect functioned to produce different results, in that the British ‘spin-on’ led to the invention of the Parsons turbine while the Japanese was exploited only within the context of adaptation of the original invention.


Overall sociological insights obtainable from these conclusions can be briefly integrated into the particular combination of structure and function of the ship revolution in a manner which satisfies the principle of similar structures having different functions. Structure here means a particular configuration of agents involved in the ship revolution that can be observed in common across British and Japanese social contexts. Function here means the objective results which structure in the above sense brings about in the particular society.104 Both Britain and Japan had similar structure in terms of ‘spin-on’ from the private sector coupled with de facto ‘spin-off’ from the military one. However, its function was obviously different: Britain led the development of the marine turbine and Japan adapted it during its transfer. It is true that this is only a convenient way of expressing the British and Japanese experience in the ship revolution within a comparative perspective. But it enables us to find deeper implications of the conclusions of this chapter for latecomers’ industrialization. The reason is that it leads us to further detect a subtler but significantly different function fulfilled by Mitsubishi behind its similar structure to the Marine Steam Turbine Company/Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company. Mitsubishi’s organization and company regulations concerning patent ownership provided fertile ground for the new technology to take root, from which initial process the new Mitsubishi type was developed. Advanced technologies did not automatically flow from Western countries into the industrially undeveloped Japan of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the above description and analysis, this chapter documents the avenues that Mitsubishi pursued, not only in actively seeking out a new technology and transferring it, but also in ensuring an organizational and educational infrastructure in the private sphere that would foster the continued development of new industrial technologies. It is noteworthy in this connection that Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard did not specialize only in the production of the marine turbine. It was a large-scale general machinery maker which produced not only ships but also various types of machinery including steam turbines for power plants.105 Thanks to economies of scale, a large-scale company producing various types of goods could afford to make an initial investment in a specific technology, to commit to long-term investment in industrial education, and to organize the results of the investments through patent ownership regulations designed to ensure that the company could assimilate the new technology and improve it as profitably as possible.106 As a latecomer to industrialization, Japan lagged behind Western countries in the specialization of production, so shipbuilding was often done in parallel with machine production within the same company. The advent and success of large general machinery makers such as Mitsubishi concentrated capital in private hands, where it could be used to engage, for example, in the creation of the new Mitsubishi type of turbine, a separate development parallel with another type development by the Navy.107


To understand further the background of this subtle but significant function fulfilled by Mitsubishi behind the structurally similar ‘spin-on’ and de facto ‘spin-off’, it is necessary to realize that a number of large-scale Japanese companies were transferred from government to private ownership. Against this background, Mitsubishi rented the Nagasaki Shipyard from the Ministry of Engineering in 1884, and in 1887 the ownership was transferred from the Ministry of Engineering to Mitsubishi. What is most important about this transfer is that this does not mean that the private companies merely took over daily operations after the government had set the business on its way. On the contrary, the Ministry of Engineering had failed to run the Nagasaki Shipyard successfully, running up a deficit amounting to more than 100,000 yen by 1884. In a sense, by purchasing the shipyard, Mitsubishi, with its strong capital base, saved the ministry.108 A number of government enterprises in such industries as mining, textiles and iron were bought by private companies in the wake of government failures, often stemming from a lack of entrepreneurship and a simple-minded adoption of a Western standpoint of selecting the best available technology, an approach which did not take into account local conditions like workers’ technical abilities.109 In these respects, Japan’s private sector, particularly large-scale companies like Mitsubishi, had unique attitudes, behaviour patterns and institutional characteristics that functioned to contribute to technology transfer and the eventual success of domestic production. And these attitudes, behaviour patterns and institutional characteristics subsequently functioned to lead to the creation of the new Mitsubishi type, which in turn served as an independent back-up for the new naval turbine developed by the Imperial Japanese Navy as described and analyzed above. It is therefore true to say that the private sector served as the other important agent of techno-nationalism in prewar Japan.110 Of course, the implication obtained from this chapter is based on a case mainly embodying the ‘spin-on’ aspect in technology transfer alone. Whether it holds true for the ‘spin-off’ aspect of organizational products and science-based process innovations has yet to be independently determined. The dual viewpoint manifested in ‘spin-on’ coupled with de facto ‘spin-off’, instead of the dichotomy between government-directed development and privately directed development, will provide an important new framework for further comparative studies on the institutional modes of technological development.

5 ‘Spin-off’ in the Nationalization of R&D: The Recasting of the British System in an Industrializing Japan

In sharp contrast with the focus on ‘spin-on’ within the military-industrialuniversity complex in Chapter 4, this chapter poses the following questions about the ‘spin-off’ process. How did the military-industrial-university complex achieve spin-off and, through that, develop R&D into national organizations? How similar or different were the factors that contributed to spin-off and the development of R&D into national organizations in Britain and Japan? And from the similarities and differences, what general insights can we obtain into the interaction between science, technology and industrial society? This chapter attempts to give answers to these questions by focusing on the nationalization process of the experimental tank in Britain and Japan, and by comparing these two countries’ efforts to adapt themselves to the ship revolution during the process. An R&D organization here means a discrete body that continuously procures and systematically organizes materials, human resources, information and money for the purpose of getting practical benefits from science and technology as well as satisfying intellectual curiosity. In contrast with the difference in the social context of spin-on in Britain and Japan clarified with reference to the marine turbine, both countries faced very similar problems during the process of the nationalization of the experimental tank. However, the solutions found by the two countries were significantly different in terms of the patterns of spin-off. This chapter pursues the sociological implications of these different solutions for Japan’s industrialization within a comparative perspective with Britain. The experimental tank refers, as explained in Chapter 1 and 2, to a device to accurately estimate, through a ship model experiment, the resistance of a full-scale ship, which increases with speed. It signified the beginning of modern ship design based on ship model experiments and the law of comparison. As mentioned in Chapter 2, William Froude set up the pioneering Torquay tank, the first in the world, in 1872 with financial assistance from the Royal Navy. Today it has become indispensable for modern ship design for both military and commercial purposes. Despite this early effort of 118

‘Spin-off’ in the Nationalization of R&D 119

Froude’s, however, the use of the experimental tank long remained confined primarily to the design of naval vessels. Spin-off from its military use through the incorporation of the tank in a national research institute open to wider use for the merchant marine was extremely delayed, due to stubborn resistance and funding difficulties. The first breakthrough was only made in the first decade of the twentieth century. And Japan experienced similar difficulties. This chapter first analyses the British spin-off process through which the experimental tank became incorporated in a national research institute after profound conflict, struggle and negotiation against pre-existing customs and ways of thinking. It then analyses the equivalent process in Japan through which the tank, having been transferred in 1908 and mostly restricted to naval vessel design, became incorporated in a national research institute for a wider use for the merchant marine. After identifying the similarities and the differences of these two processes, the chapter will probe the similarities and differences in the underlying social backgrounds, with particular reference to the nature of professional societies of naval architects in both countries. Based on these descriptions and analyses, sociological implications of the ‘spin-off’ process will be elucidated from the viewpoint of the patterns of institutionalization of science and technology, highlighting what Japan did not transfer from the British ship revolution. The final section of the chapter summarizes the overall argument, and the general insights obtainable from the spin-off process are extended.

The British ‘spin-off’ process in the setting up of the National Physical Laboratory’s experimental tank What is wanted is to get an assured conviction in the minds of all who are interested in shipping that this establishment will be of real value and will promote economy; when that is once grasped, there will be no difficulty on the side of finance … a modest expenditure enables these economies to be realised … I am firm in the conviction that this time we are going to do something, and to cease talking.1 This statement was made at the 45th general meeting of the Institution of Naval Architects (INA), held on 24 March 1904, by W. H. White, its vice president. The ‘something’ to be done referred to the construction of an experimental tank at the National Physical Laboratory (abbreviated to the NPL hereafter), itself only set up in 1900. It was White himself who had recommended the construction plan. On the same day, his plan was put to a vote and a decision was made unanimously to implement it.2 As mentioned earlier, Froude had already built the pioneering Torquay tank with financial assistance from the Royal Navy in 1872. This tank had been used for designing


ships with the least resistance and estimating horsepower required for ships of different size and shape, in the earliest of the ship model experiments that are indispensable to modern shipbuilding. Why then did White have to push for carrying out the above recommendation despite the fact that the Torquay tank had already been in operation for more than three decades? The reason was that the use of the Torquay tank had been confined to designing naval vessels for the Royal Navy. It is true that Denny & Company and John Brown & Company built experimental tanks in 1882 and 1904 respectively. However, these tanks were naturally only for in-house research. There had been no experimental tank available for the wider common use of private shipbuilding companies. The advent of iron/steel ships propelled by steam engine made possible steadily higher speeds, but at the same time it gave rise to a novel problem of fuel consumption not seen earlier. One of the most critical keys to solving this problem was how to reduce hull resistance, to which a ship model experiment carried out with the experimental tank could greatly contribute. In this respect, the experimental tank was an apparatus answering the need arising from the ongoing revolution in the material and motive power of vessels. If contemporary British shipbuilding and shipping companies had been sensitive to the fact that economy of ships would lead to increased profits, and had had even a slight degree of openness of mind to free them from rule of thumb, they should have been keen to carry out the tank experiment immediately after the advent of the Torquay tank. Surprisingly, however, despite the early advent of the Torquay tank, ‘such an application of the system, which we owe to the genius and mechanical skill of the late Mr. W. Froude, has not been carried into practical effect.’3 Among other things, it was difficult, even if a shipbuilding company had wished to do so, to get human resources with the scientific expertise necessary for tank experiments. This was symbolized in the fact the nationwide examination for naval architects conducted under the auspices of the Department of Science and Arts contained no question about ‘Mr. Froude’s law of proportional resistances and speeds’ even in the early 1880s.4 Without the law, the results of ship model experiments would have been irrelevant to full-scale ship design. According to William Denny, one of the partners in Denny & Company, the first private shipbuilder to build an experimental tank, the outdated system resulted in ‘promising young men, consuming valuable time, in acquiring practically useless knowledge, for the one purpose of passing these examinations’.5 Thus the British shipbuilding industry was largely in the grip of outdated rule of thumb up to the 1880s (and afterwards). Against this background, White took as an example the construction of freight ships which had been designed with particular emphasis on ‘precedent and experience’, and pointed out that the general rule had been formed ‘without scientific guidance based on experiment’.6 Two years before White’s statement, A. F. Yarrow, also one of the vice presidents of the INA, drew up a


plan for the INA to build a national experimental tank unconnected with any private firm and available for all firms concerned, and asked for subscriptions from leading shipbuilding companies. What he found was indifference.7 This attitude had a long history as described and analysed in Chapter 2. From the very beginning when Froude first proposed the construction of the pioneering Torquay tank, he ‘was opposed by the leading English scientists of that time’ so that he had to maintain his idea ‘against the world’.8 In addition, some people believed that, even if one experimental tank was built in the NPL and shipbuilders desired to make use of it, it would be difficult to accommodate any significant number of users. In the words of the Earl of Glasgow, the president of the INA of the day, there was the ‘difficulty of satisfying the requirements of a number of firms who might be requiring models to be tested at one and the same time’. And ‘a single tank obviously could not suffice for the use of all shipbuilders for the testing of the resistance of ship models representing proposed vessels.’9 Objections had already been and continued to be raised particularly because the proposed tank was for the purpose of promoting research that ‘has no relation to current designs, and does not affect the actual practice of individual firms at the moment’.10 To put it in modern language, the proposed tank was for basic research rather than ordinary routine testing. The problem was then how to obtain financial aid from private shipbuilding companies in order to support a public project for basic research, as distinct from routine testing, against their persistent obsession with ‘precedent and experience’. The estimated initial cost was £15,000 and that for annual running was £1500.11 White’s proposal was a kind of artifice to solve this problem. On the one hand, if the experimental tank was built at the NPL whose purpose was ‘to promote the application of scientific knowledge to industry, to commerce, and to manufacture’, it could work with well-equipped facilities to conduct routine testing.12 In fact, White’s plan included services to be provided for private shipbuilding and shipping companies, such as routine testing to be carried out at cost, maintaining confidentiality with regard to the results. On the other hand, ‘the science and mathematical knowledge and mathematical ability of the country’ gathered at the NPL could be also utilized for collaborative basic research.13 In his blueprint aimed at fulfilling these two very different objectives of basic research and routine business, White employed various rhetorical expressions to persuade both parties concerned with either, such as: ‘pious founder’, ‘not merely of national, but of universal interest to all connected with ship construction’, and ‘enormous economy’. Thus, he demanded an ‘absolutely free tank’, and at the same time turned people’s attention to the ‘economic possibility’ by explaining the expected saving estimated in terms of coal cost.14 Four years later, in 1909, based on this plan recommended by White, A. F. Yarrow who ran a private shipbuilding company, offered a contribution of £20,000, more than the estimated initial cost. Yarrow’s offer, made in his


letter addressed to R. T. Grazebrook, the director of the NPL, and dated 17 April 1909, states: My Dear Dr Grazebrook, I am now quite ready to give effect to my promise of £20,000 to establish at Bushy an Experimental Tank. I presume for many reasons it would be wise for me to hand over now to the proper authorities the above amount. I presume a special banking account will be opened for the construction of the Experimental Tank in the name of trustees. I should propose to hand them a cheque for a few thousand pounds in order to open such an account. The balance I should propose to transfer in securities of the trustee stock type representing its equivalent. From time to time these stocks could be sold … Should it by any means happen that when the sale of the stocks is completed the total amount, together with the accrued interest, does not equal £20,000, I will make up the deficiency. If, on the other hand (which is most probable), it exceeds the £20,000 the excess can go towards the Tank Funds … The Advisory Tank Committee … will provide for the maintenance of the confidential character of all work done at the Tank for private firms, will specify the conditions under which such work shall be undertaken, and indicate the principles on which fees are to be charged … I remain, Yours very truly, A. F. Yarrow.15 This very generous offer helped greatly in advancing the implementation of White’s plan. Fund-raising started immediately. Its purpose was to ask shipbuilding and shipping companies for annual subscriptions in order to collect £2000 annually to pay the running costs for each of the next ten years. Launched with such a huge initial contribution the fund-raising eventually resulted in success, with 20 leading shipbuilding and shipping companies agreeing to offer a total of £1340 for each of the next ten years (for details, see Table 5.1). The construction of the national experimental tank at the NPL was thus subject to the condition that the NPL would bear any extra cost. The tank was finally completed in 1911.16 The completed tank was 30 feet (9.14 metres) broad, 13 feet (3.96 metres) deep, and 500 feet (152.40 metres) long. It was put under the control of the Advisory Tank Committee, which decided that ‘The National Experimental Tank shall be worked as a department of the National Physical Laboratory’.17 As a result, it was incorporated effectively as an independent department of the NPL on an equal footing with its other departments, and was named after William Froude the William Froude National Tank of the NPL (see Table 5.2). Reckoning from the establishment of the Torquay tank, it took thus almost 40 years for the experimental tank to be incorporated in a national research institute in Britain, despite the fact that Britain was the first to develop this tank, representing as it did the leading edge of naval architecture of the day. It took so long to persuade the parties concerned of the necessity of a national experimental tank. In particular, the causes of this long delay were the strong

‘Spin-off’ in the Nationalization of R&D 123 Table 5.1 Contributors to the NPL tank running costs Name of contributor

Amount (£ per year)

W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. John Brown & Co. Cammell, Laird & Co. Doxford & Sons Fairfield Shipbuilding Co. Harland & Wolff Lloyd’s Register Society Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Co. Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Ltd. Vickers, Sons & Maxim James Dixon Hawthorn, Leslie & Co. Holzapfel’s Compositions Co. Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Co. Scott & Co., Greenock Babcock & Wilcox David J. Dunlop & Co. Thornycroft & Co. White Star Line Suter, Hartmann & Co.

100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 50 50 50 50 50 20 20 20 20 10

Note: In addition, John Gravell, an INA councillor, contributed £10 10s. Source: National Physical Laboratory Collected Researches, vol. 6, (1910), pp. 35–48.

Table 5.2 The organizational structure of the British National Experimental Tank established at the NPL in 1911 Physics Department Electricity Division Electrotechnics Division Thermometry Division Metrology Division Optics Division Tide Prediction Library Engineering Department Department of Metallurgy and Metallurgical Chemistry William Froude National Tank Observatory Department Source: National Physical Laboratory, Report for the Year, 1911.

resistance from private shipbuilding and shipping companies heavily reliant on rule of thumb and the difficulty of fund-raising for the purpose of basic research that seemed unconnected with routine testing. A tactical plan for reconciling routine testing and basic research within a public R&D organization was invented by a professional naval architect, and that plan broke


through the difficulty, since it could be used both to persuade people concerned of the benefits of the tank and to facilitate fund-raising. It invited the subscription of the private sector, which was then followed by the supply of necessary facilities and additional expense met by the public sector. Obviously, we cannot dismiss circumstances peculiar to contemporary Britain, which was just facing a challenge to the Pax Britannica from Germany and the US.18 However, about two decades later, we can find a similar problem in Japan that was at the time a Far Eastern latecomer in naval architecture as mentioned in Chapter 2. The problem was also concerned with the incorporation of the experimental tank in a national research institute.

The Japanese ‘spin-off’ process in the setting up of the National Experimental Tank We have already had a lot of excellent research institutes such as the Ministry of Communications’ Electrical Testing Institute (Teishin Sho Denki Shikenjo), the Industrial Testing Institute (Kogyo Shikenjo), the Electrical Research Institute of Tokyo (Tokyo Denki Kenkyujo), the Railway Agency’s Research Institute (Tetsudoin Kenkyujo), various laboratories of universities, and so on. The National Physical Laboratory and the Bureau of Standards are going to pursue their own interests … However … I have to confess that I cannot help sighing over the way some people’s discussions are merely based on what has been proved by overseas achievements, which is a frequently observed pattern of behaviour of the Japanese. There is no use building a research institute without a real demand from industrialists … Look at those who are recently anxious to call themselves ‘new generation’, ‘free people’, and so forth. Listening to them as they pay exaggerated lip service to public benefit would bore you stiff. What they say will evaporate sooner or later … because it is not based on their real need, but is a lifeless imitation of what is contained in books purchased at a foreign book store.19 This is a statement made by Kyoji Suehiro in 1921 (actually read by Mr Fujishima, a personal secretary to Suehiro) at the discussion of a paper entitled ‘On an industrial research institute’ (Kogyoteki kenkyu kikan ni tsuite) presented by Kazuma Minato at the Shipbuilding Association. Suehiro was a well-established naval architect who later became the president of the Shipbuilding Association. Minato was then an engineering official of the Ministry of Communications, which governed ship administration in prewar Japan. Minato’s paper started from the realization that the NPL and other public R&D organizations in Europe and the US were becoming ‘the most useful means for winning in global industrial competition’. Based on this realization, he advocated the construction of an experimental tank by the government or by the collaboration of the governmental and private sectors.20


Looking back at the trend of R&D organizations since the First World War, Minato’s paper accurately grasped the increasing importance of the systematic provision and utilization of public R&D organizations in industrial society. He also strongly stressed the ‘promotion’ of ‘scientific and industrial research’ by the setting up of a central public R&D body by the government or by collaboration between the government and the private sector.21 In the light of the further progress of the ship revolution since the turn of the century, his paper was reasonable in that he called for the construction of an experimental tank open to all private shipbuilding companies or any party ‘concerned’. As described and analyzed in Chapter 2, both the Imperial Japanese Navy and Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard constructed their own experimental tanks in 1908. However, many years had passed and there was still no public R&D organization for tank tests open to private shipbuilding companies. Still in 1921, the Ad Hoc Investigation Committee on Finance and Economy (Rinji Zaisei Keizai Chosa Kai) submitted the following report in reply to Question No. 4 ‘What should be the fundamental policy for maintaining and developing the shipbuilding industry?’ (Zosengyo no Iji Hattatsu ni kansuru Konpon Hoshin Ikan): ‘Research institutes of ships … would be extremely beneficial to the national economy … However, there are no facilities which can be used for making tests and research upon request from shipping and shipbuilding companies, thus contributing to both industries and the nation as a whole. The situation is extremely regrettable to both the government and private companies.’22 The Shipbuilding Association formed a research committee on the experimental tank in the same year and submitted a report to the Minister of Communications on the construction of a national experimental tank.23 Suehiro’s statement shows the nature of resistance to these efforts to create a public R&D organization for tank tests. The resistance originated in a suspicion of basic research that could hardly be described as ‘a real demand of industrialists’. In particular, the resistance was directed to the new patterns of scientific and technological activities whose focus was shifting from personal effort to systematic and continuous organization of human resources, information, money and materials. The following statement by Suehiro clearly illustrates this: It is always those people who never do any research who complain of their inferior research budget. They would do nothing even if they were given superb facilities comparable to those of the Bureau of Standards … I really wonder if the Japanese have the spirit of research. Suppose that people without any spirit of research are given rich facilities. They will produce no fruitful result because machines lacking inspiration will never just automatically do research or produce an invention. Accordingly … I must say setting up a large-scale research institute under the circumstances is not a good idea … The present education system is


just like manufacturing discs for phonographs. It must be completely changed into a different education system that cultivates an independent self-enlightening spirit seeking to create. Discs or no, original ones may do something useful. However, if copied discs are played back on a phonograph, the sound reproduction will be terrible.24 We can clearly perceive the view that underlines the individual effort of a genius and ascribes organization-related problems to individual researchers. By contrast, Minato noticed significant changes particularly in the social organization of research activities, changes which cannot be fully understood by relying only on the individual effort of a genius. He remarked: Take war for example. Man-to-man fights in ancient days have changed to nation-to-nation war nowadays. In this way, the bodies participating in competition have become larger. This is also true of research activities. In the past, a few people with genius did research independently. Now, however, since problems have become far more complex, one or two geniuses cannot handle them. People are realizing that it is necessary to gather a lot of experts and make them cooperate in order to solve target problems. Such changes are inevitably leading to the establishment of a central research institute.25 The difference between these two parties thus reflected essentially different contexts, seemingly irreconcilable. Then Junichiro Imaoka, a former engineering officer of the Ministry of Communications, intervened. He stated: Mr Suehiro has every reason to make a denunciatory remark like this. He is an arduous researcher who has made every effort to do research overcoming any difficulty. Considering his effort, ordinary people in this world cannot say anything against him. Obviously, he has due reason to be indignant with the lack of effort among ordinary researchers … However, we should also notice that something significant is changing nowadays as to research settings … Let me dare to say that I expect support from a rather senior researcher such as Mr Suehiro for the public body for R&D.26 Having thus appeased Suehiro, Imaoka proposed the establishment of a research committee on the experimental tank. A number of voices were raised to argue for the necessity of ‘basic research’, ‘scientific research’, and ‘advancement of science’. Imaoka’s proposal eventually gained support from those attending. In compliance with this support, Seiichi Terano, the president of the Shipbuilding Association, undertook to make a decision on the proposal at a meeting of the board of directors.27 The above-mentioned Shipbuilding Association research committee on the experimental tank was thus formed, which in 1921 recommended the


Ministry of Communications to construct a national experimental tank. And in the following year, the Ad Hoc Investigation Committee on Finance and Economy incorporated its confirmation of this recommendation in the above-mentioned report submitted in reply to Question No. 4. The report states: ‘The Ship Research Institute will be the foundation of the Japanese shipbuilding industry and enable the industry to develop greatly. Therefore the government is strongly advised to establish it immediately.’28 Based on this recommendation, the Ministry of Communications proposed allocation of budget for the construction of the national tank in its 1921 budget. After this proposal obtained the approval of the Imperial Diet, the construction of the tank was to start under the auspices of the Ship Administration Bureau, the Ministry of Communications. The allocated budget was 775,000 yen. However, since the allocated budget was enormous and did not directly concern the daily business of ship administration, the actual expenditure was postponed twice, despite a resolution by the Maritime Administration Committee of the ministry, ‘Improvement of Ship Research Facilities’ (Senpaku Kenkyu Shisetsu no Seibi), which was passed on 23 January 1922.29 It was nine years later, in 1930, that the tank was finally completed, the Great Earthquake in 1923 having further delayed its completion. The total expenditure for the construction finally amounted to 959,000 yen.30 The tank thus completed was 139.15 metres long, 10.00 metres wide, and 6.30 metres deep.31 It was put under the control of the Ship Administration Bureau of the Ministry of Communications (see Table 5.3), and was usually called the Mejiro tank after the place where it was located in Tokyo. These are the processes through which the experimental tank, transferred from Britain to Japan in 1908, became incorporated in a national research institute. Reckoning from the time of its first transfer, it took about two decades for the tank to be organized as a national research institute. The time was spent persuading the parties concerned of the necessity of the national experimental tank for R&D. In particular, the causes of this long delay were the researchers’ strong adherence to pre-existing research settings and difficulty in getting funds for the purpose of basic research even from the ministry that finalized the tank construction and would directly control the tank when completed. Ultimately the entire society had to adapt itself to the new patterns of scientific and technological activity where a public body for R&D became increasingly indispensable during the ship revolution. In an attempt to solve these problems, two different plans for supporting the establishment of the tank were originally proposed by an engineering official of the Ministry of Communications: one based on governmental support and control, the other on joint support and control by the governmental and private sectors. Governmental support and control was eventually adopted. A question arises concerning this choice. How did these various characteristics in the process of the nationalization of the experimental tank in Japan differ from the equivalent characteristics in Britain? Or how similar were they?

128 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace Table 5.3 The organizational structure of the Japanese National Experimental Tank as established by the Ministry of Communications in 1930 Postal Bureau (Yumu Kyoku) Savings Bureau (Chokin Kyoku) Telegraph Bureau (Denmu Kyoku) Engineering Bureau (Komu Kyoku) Electricity Bureau (Denki Kyoku) Ship Administration Bureau (Kansen Kyoku) Manpower Division (Kaiin Ka) Accounts (Kanri Ka) General Affairs Division (Shomu Ka) Ship Division (Senpaku Ka) Shipbuilding Division (Zosen Ka) The Mejiro National Tank (Senkei Shikenjo) Aircraft Administration Bureau (Koku Kyoku) Source: ‘Senpaku Shikenjo Kinen Shi’ (A commemorative publication on the history of the National Ship Experimental Tank) (Tokyo: for private distribution, 1956), appendix: interviews with former staff; Teishin Sho (ed.) Teishin Sho 50 Nen Ryakushi (A short history of 50 years of the Ministry of Communications) (Tokyo, 1936); Yusei Sho (ed.) Zoku Teishin Jigyo Shi (A History of the Ministry of Communications: Second Series) (Tokyo, 1963), vol. 1.

The social background underlying public R&D organizations: the INA and the Shipbuilding Association Comparing the above processes through which the experimental tanks evolved into an R&D apparatus incorporated in national research institutes in Britain and Japan, we can at least see the following three similarities. First, there was a long time lag between the first installation and operation of the experimental tanks and their nationalization into research facilities open to a wider public use. Second, a strong resistance due to adherence to pre-existing custom and ways of thinking intervened in the process of nationalization and greatly retarded the process. Third, fund-raising for basic research provided a focus for this resistance. Naturally, there were minor differences in detail in these highly similar features of the two processes. Although the long time lag was an order of several decades in both countries, it was longer in Britain because it was the first to undertake the nationalization at a time when there was no relevant precedent, a situation which made for stronger resistance. There was also a slight difference in the resistance in that private shipbuilding companies’ belief in rule of thumb was the prime factor in Britain, whereas researchers’ poor understanding of changing research settings was the most important factor in Japan. Likewise, the two countries placed a different emphasis on


basic research. Joint use of the national tank by private companies was the result of compromise between requests for basic research and immediately useful routine testing in Britain. In Japan on the other hand, the same compromise was the basis for basic research as the term was understood there at the time. In contemporary Japan basic research tended to be defined as anything useful for self-reliant development of science and technology. Seiichi Terano, the president of the Shipbuilding Association of the day, provided a telling expression of this concept of basic research. When he brought to an end the above-mentioned discussion of the tank paper presented by Kazuma Minato, Terano remarked as follows: ‘We are about to set out on the road to the self-reliant development of Japanese shipbuilding. Keeping abreast with this trend, the Shipbuilding Association must tackle original basic research to promote the trend.’32 In sum, the problems the two countries faced regarding the nationalization process were basically similar in terms of the overall structure, within which minor differences in detail and nuance can be detected. On the other hand, it is extremely difficult to find any similarity between Britain and Japan in the solutions found to the problems, because we are bound to face characteristically different modes in the creation of entirely new public R&D organizations in the two countries. The tank was run by the governmental sector alone in Japan, whereas it was jointly run by the governmental and private sectors in Britain. The difference becomes all the more conspicuous when we examine the course of creation in each country. In Britain, despite the fact that the initial plan (as proposed by A. F. Yarrow) was to build a national tank unconnected with any firm at the NPL, a tank jointly run by the governmental and the private sector was eventually selected. In contrast, despite the initial alternatives of a government-run tank or a jointly run one, the government-run tank was eventually selected in Japan. Why did the two countries find such remarkably different solutions to the similar problems they were confronted with? A clue to answering this question lies in the underlying social background in each country. Looking back at the social process through which science, technology and industrial society interacted in Britain, the British scientists and engineers had had a long prehistory of conflicts, struggles and negotiations with other groups in society. Even if we confine ourselves to the period starting from the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century, there were so many places for an encounter between different interests in science and technology in society. Among other things, until the second half of the nineteenth century, there was no public body in which scientists and engineers were able to satisfy their requirements for specialization and vocationalization simultaneously due to the persistent amateur tradition. Within this tradition, sciences and technologies were liable to be regarded as a gentlemen’s innocent amusement rather than an independent and specialized occupation.33 In that amateur-oriented situation, British scientists and engineers


often came into conflict with other sub-groups within various social contexts such as the Literary and Philosophical Society, dating back to the Lunar Society formed in Birmingham in the 1760s, scientific chairs created by various research institutes such as the Royal Institution set up in 1799, the nationwide British Association for the Advancement of Science set up in 1831, and a number of professional societies in specific fields mostly appearing after the mid-nineteenth century.34 As mentioned in Chapter 1, this long prehistory of spontaneous conflict, struggles and negotiations made the advance of the scientific and technological revolution follow a zigzag course in Britain. Various voluntary associations and endogenous movements of scientists and engineers revolving around the ‘decline of science’ movement, the ‘endowment of science’ movement and the ‘technical education’ movement, for example, took the initiative at different stages in that course. Also, against the background of a long tradition of the classical professions, the qualifications of scientists and engineers came to be awarded by their specialized peer communities, which in turn gave rise to the concept that specialized work as qualified scientists and engineers should be recognized and rewarded.35 Both specialization and vocationalization, the two key elements of professionalization, thus proceeded spontaneously based on this initiative of scientists, engineers, and their communities dealing stepwise with the conflicts, struggles, and negotiations with the interests of other sub-groups of industrial society. As a result of this, the start up of the professionalization of science and technology was far from smooth and efficient. To give a symbolic example, Charles Babbage, who was one of the strongest in asserting a decline of British science, had, in 1830, argued that ‘The pursuit of science does not, in England, constitute a distinct profession’. Yet in 1851, when the Great Exhibition, which had been expected to show British preeminence in industry made possible by the advancement of science and technology, was held in London he still felt obliged to comment: ‘Science in England is not a profession: its cultivators are scarcely recognised even as a class. Our language itself contains no single term by which their occupation can be expressed.’36 In contrast, Japan encountered the scientific and technological revolution all at once in the second half of the nineteenth century when science and technology were just about to become fully professionalized. Particularly around the turn of the century, Japan’s heavy industrialization owed a lot to the ship revolution, the first scientific and technological revolution made possible by professional expertise. And the professional expertise produced by naval architects and marine engineers such as W. Froude and C. A. Parsons had already destroyed a long-standing amateur-oriented tradition during the process of this ship revolution, as described earlier. In this sense, what Japan transferred from the revolution at the turn of the century was the results produced by professionals. And there is a general view that Japan was able to transfer the results of the scientific and technological revolution precisely


because of this professionalization that had already organized the fruits of science and technology into systematic knowledge (for example, textbooks), easy to reproduce and transfer to a different social context. In fact, well before this professionalization of Western science and technology, various incorrect revisions, adaptations and transformations were transferred to Japan (for example, Newtonian dynamics, its concepts reconstructed based on the theory of chi [spirit], was transferred to China in the Sung dynasty, and then on to Japan).37 In so far as the professionalization of Western science and technology provided an important watershed in making its results transferable to a different social context, the professionalization itself was a factor that contributed to the successful transfer of Western science and technology to Japan and eventually to its industrialization. However, the transfer of the experimental tank and the marine turbine predated the publication of Japanese textbooks on them. This was due to the exceptionally early move of Japan to transfer them at a time when hardly any textbook on such advanced technologies had been produced by professional naval architects and marine engineers of the day. The elements of the military-industrial-university complex, which worked well as gatekeepers in their transfer to Japan, could be regarded as profiting from this systematic transferability because the experimental tank and the marine turbine were typical of the products made available through professionalized science and technology. Of course, what professionalization affects cannot be confined, by definition, to the results of science and technology alone. It also bears on the social process through which the patterns of interaction between science, technology and industrial society became rearranged through conflicts, struggles and negotiations. That is to say, the military-industrial-university complex, efficient though it is in the absorption of the results of professionalized science and technology, does not necessarily guarantee an efficient setting for production of further results, that is, a system of constant exchange of information, materials, human resources and money between science, technology and industrial society. Rapid absorption of the results is a completely different matter from an endogenous accumulation of experience in the interaction between professionalized science and technology and industrial society through trial and error. The endogenous accumulation of experience to find out such workable and efficient patterns must usually be very time-consuming. Since Japan, from the Meiji Restoration onwards, was forced to quickly put into effect the results of Western science and technology for industrialization, it could hardly afford such a time-consuming accumulation of experience. 38 Following the definition of professionalization given in Chapter 1, what is essential for professionalized science and technology in such a setting is the particular patterns of specialization and vocationalization based on the initiative of scientists, engineers and their specialized communities: the patterns


through which such specialized communities qualify the work of their members, based on which they get rewards from the wider society they belong to.39 The selection of such patterns presupposes an endogenous culture that controls the way of thinking and the behaviour patterns intervening in between the interaction of science, technology and industrial society so that the interaction can be integrated into such patterns. Without this culture, the specialized communities of scientists and engineers, their qualification by the communities (patterns of specialization), and the qualification-based attainment of their rewards (patterns of vocationalization) would become independent of each other. Accordingly, if this culture was absent in creating the public organizations for R&D, then we could expect the government to have ensured the vocationalization of scientists and engineers, simply because it enables a larger amount of expenditure in a more stable manner than any other agent. The qualification given by the specialized communities must have hardly had anything to do with the matter, or, if any, only an accidental connection. If this culture worked, then we can expect, in contrast, the specialization based on the qualification given by the specialized communities of scientists and engineers to have been intrinsically involved in the public R&D organizations. The role of the government if any, must have been, accidental. If this hypothesis holds for the nationalization processes of the experimental tanks, we must be able to detect a significant difference in the way in which key specialized communities got involved in the process of nationalization in Britain and Japan, and qualified naval architects and guaranteed the quality of work done by them. In cases where the involvement of the key specialized communities is equally detectable in this process in both countries, there should still have been a significant difference in their method of qualification and their involvement. The INA and the Shipbuilding Association provide the crux in the examination of this hypothesis, because they were the key professional societies in Britain and Japan which were concerned with the nationalization of the experimental tanks as well as the qualification of naval architects and their professional standards. The INA was founded in 1860. It had the following three purposes: 1. Bringing together of those results of experience which so many shipbuilders, marine engineers, naval officers, yachtsmen, and others acquire … and which, though almost valueless when unconnected, doubtless tend much to improve our navies when brought together. 2. Carrying out … such experimental and other inquiries as may be deemed essential to the promotion of the science and art of shipbuilding. 3. The examination of new inventions, and the investigation of those professional questions which often arise, and were left undecided. The membership was divided into Members, Associates, Honorary Members and Honorary Associates.40


The Shipbuilding Association was founded in 1897. According to a statement by the first president, Noriyoshi Akamatsu, recorded in the minutes of the first general meeting, the Association was ‘modelled on’ the INA. In fact, the purpose and membership of the Shipbuilding Association were quite similar to those of the INA. The purpose was to ‘notify the members’ of ‘useful experience, improvements, and inventions’; to conduct ‘urgent and important experiments’; and to ‘inquire and answer questions’. The membership was divided into Members (Seiin), Associates (Kyodoin), Junior Members (Junin), Honorary Members (Meiyoin), and Cooperators (Sanseiin).41 The number of their Members, the category requiring the strictest qualification for admission, would suggest that both professional societies contributed equally to a rapid increase in the number of qualified naval architects from the time of their establishment (see Figure 5.1 and 5.2). When we compare their standards for membership qualification, however, a significant difference appears. To become an INA Member, candidates had to fulfill the following six criteria. They had to: (1) be more than twenty-five years of age; (2) have been professionally engaged in shipbuilding for at least seven years in a public or private shipbuilding establishment; (3) set forth the grounds upon which the claim to be considered a professional naval architect was based; (4) submit an application signed by at least three Members, whose signatures had to certify their personal knowledge of the candidate; (5) obtain four-fifths at least of the votes of the professional members of the Council in favour of the application, such four-fifths constituting a majority of the professional members of the council; and (6) obtain

1400 1200

Persons

1000 800 600 400 200 0

1861

1865

1870

1875

1880

1885

1890

1895

1900

1905

1910

1914

Figure 5.1 Membership of the INA in Britain Note: In 1860 when the INA was founded, the membership was counted without distinguishing Members from the other participants. The graph, therefore begins with the year 1861 when the Members began to be counted separately from others. Source: TINA.


Persons

350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0

1897

1902

1907

1912

1917

Figure 5.2 Membership of the Shipbuilding Association in Japan Source: Zosen Kyokai Nenpo; Zosen Kyokai Kaiho.

approval in a ballot of the ordinary meeting of the INA.42 By contrast, to become a Member of the Shipbuilding Association, it was sufficient for candidates to fulfil only the following two criteria: (1) recommendation from at least two Members, and (2) approval by the board of directors.43 The two societies were the first professional societies in naval architecture and marine engineering established in their respective countries. And they were quite similar in purpose, type of membership, and the growth in the number of Members, the category with the strictest qualifying criteria. Nevertheless, as explained above qualifications for new Members were clearly different. The INA set up extremely strict standards for qualification as a Member and made a judgment on whether candidates fulfilled specialization requirements. For example, among the first membership of the INA in 1860, even William Froude who later became the founding father of the Torquay tank remained an Associate. This was because most of his professional career up to then had been in civil engineering. It was not until 1856 that he embarked on naval architecture by commencing ‘an investigation into the laws of motion of a ship among waves’ at the request of Isambard K. Brunel.44 Likewise, when C. A. Parsons read his first paper on the marine turbine to the INA in 1897, he was not in any membership category, since his professional career up to then had followed a path mainly in mechanical engineering, in the production of generators and steam turbines for generators as described in Chapter 4.45 It was only two years later that he first became a Member of the INA. In a word, the INA had a self-evaluation system of its own in the recruitment of its Members, whereas the Shipbuilding Association did not. Particularly, it lacked a substantial judgement on whether candidates met the specialization


requirements. This strongly suggests that admission of a Member was mostly a formal matter. In fact, since it was not until 1914 that the Civil Engineering Society (Doboku Gakkai) was established in Japan, there were many civil engineers enrolled in the Shipbuilding Association until then.46 In addition to this difference in the method of qualification, there was an even more significant difference in the way these two professional societies were involved in the National Experimental Tanks. As mentioned earlier, the National Experimental Tank at the NPL was put under the control of the Advisory Tank Committee whose establishment, organization and rules were decided on 18 June 1909. According to this scheme, six out of ten members of the Tank Committee had to be nominated by the INA. The scheme states: (a) The two members of the General Board of the Laboratory nominated by the Institution of Naval Architects for appointment on the General Board in accordance with the Scheme of the Laboratory. (b) Four members nominated by the Institution of Naval Architects. (c) Four members nominated by the Executive Committee of the Laboratory.47 The influence of the INA on the start up and substantial working of the National Experimental Tank at the NPL was thus authorized from the outset. By contrast, there was no such provision to authorize any influence of the Shipbuilding Association on the Mejiro tank because the tank was set up and run by the government under the tight control of a government organization (Ship Administration Bureau of the Ministry of Communications) from the outset so that there was little room left for the influence of external professional societies.48 If the hypothesis set out above is correct, we should be able to detect some difference in the qualification of naval architects and their involvement in the national experimental tanks in Britain and Japan. Particularly, professional societies in Britain and Japan, when involved in the nationalization process, should reveal a significant difference both in ways of qualifying for membership and in the way they were involved in the nationalization. In fact, the INA and the Shipbuilding Association, the relevant professional societies in the two countries, showed marked differences in both these aspects. This fact supports the hypothesis. Based on these arguments, the following explanation of the contrasting solutions found by the two countries to the problem of the nationalization of the experimental tank seems reasonable. The INA legitimately asked private shipbuilding companies that were expected to be the main clients to contribute to the national tank, because the contribution was supposed to be an initial investment in expectation of tests to be performed by qualified naval architects. Within this context, the government’s role remained supplementary, being activated only if the clients’ initial support was insufficient.49


It is true that the Shipbuilding Association was very similar to the INA in purpose and membership. However, when one looks at the actual patterns of behaviour, the similarity was only a formal one, and what actually governed the Shipbuilding Association’s behaviour was not a legitimate request to the expected clients for an initial investment in the national tank. The association had no claim to prospective clients’ initial investment in the construction of the national tank in return for testing by qualified naval architects. Instead, it relied totally on the governmental fund to set up the tank simply because the Ministry of Communications was in charge of everything in ship administration and the government could afford the greatest, most reliable and stable expenditure. Japanese private shipbuilding and shipping companies had little expectation of any ‘spin-off’ in the form of the services that qualified naval architects could provide.50 This must have been the reason why a tank totally funded and controlled by the government was the option eventually selected despite the fact that the initial plan had proposed the alternatives of a governmental tank or a tank funded and controlled jointly by the governmental and private sectors. As the fund-raising did not involve an initial investment in return for services by qualified naval architects, naturally there was little of the sense of contribution that would have existed if there had been an expectation among private shipbuilding and shipping companies.

The implications of the nationalization of R&D in Britain and Japan Thus the nationalization process of the experimental tanks confirms that the dichotomy of a laissez-faire Britain and a government-directed Japan is too simplistic a comparison, and the process was far more complex. The fact is that joint management by the governmental and private sectors resulted from the nationalization plan in Britain, while governmental management was the outcome of selection from the alternative options of a governmental or a joint management plan in Japan. This complex structure also provides little support for commonsense concepts usually employed in Anglo-Japanese comparison, such as that individualism prevails in Britain, whereas Japan is dominated by group-oriented behaviour.51 Both in Britain and in Japan, groups, that is to say the INA and the Shipbuilding Association, were active in the process of nationalization of the experimental tank. Dichotomous categorization such as individualism versus collectivism is also too simplistic to understand the processes correctly within a comparative perspective. Theories based on dichotomous entities such as private versus public sector and individuals versus groups are too crude to reveal the relevant sociological implications of the nationalization processes of the experimental tanks in Britain and Japan, which represented a ‘spin-off’ in the ship revolution. We need more elaborate terms to express


the fine structure of such processes and to properly elucidate and interpret both the similarities and differences between the two countries. The nature and form of rules governing the national experimental tanks could provide a clue. Rules here generally indicate the role definitions of individuals and groups that govern their behaviours.52 In this sense, rules with respect to the testing service provided to private shipbuilding and shipping companies by the national tanks in both countries are particularly revealing. In Japan, as early as two years after the completion of the Mejiro tank, the Ministry of Communications stipulated that every ship built by private companies with financial assistance from the government had to undergo ship model experiments at the Mejiro tank. In Britain, where there had long been a strong objection against any government financial support for shipbuilding except for mail steamers, there was no such explicit stipulation by the government requiring private companies to carry out ship model experiments at the NPL national tank, whether the ships to be constructed got governmental financial assistance or not.53 When we look further into the situation in which the test services were provided to private companies by the national tanks in both countries, there was a more striking difference in the rules regarding fees for the services. In Japan, well before the completion of the Mejiro tank, the Ministry of Communications issued the Rules of the Experimental Tank (Ordinance no. 56 of the ministry) on 21 November 1927 and stipulated the detailed rules about fees to be paid by private companies for tests. According to the rules, every detail of the fees was explicitly stipulated, based on both the length of ships tested and the types of test carried out by the tank, in the official report of the Ministry of Communications (see Table 5.4). In addition to this detailed specification of fees, three kinds of application form for the tests to be submitted to the Minister of Communications were also stipulated in the same report, which specified every detail of the proper Table 5.4 Stipulation of the fees for tests carried out by the Mejiro tank for private companies (in yen) Length of Ships (m) Type of test 1. Hull resistance test 2. Test for optimum hull design 3. Propeller efficiency test 4. Test for optimum propeller 5. 1 & 3 with propeller working 6. 4 with propeller working 7. 2 & 4 with propeller working

Under 50 50–100 100–125 125–150 290 370 160 260 360 450 550

360 500 240 360 500 650 750

470 700 320 460 700 870 1,000

600 900 400 580 950 1,100 1,300

150– and over 750 1,100 500 700 1,150 1,350 1,600

Source: Teishin Koho (Gazette of the Ministry of Communications), no. 267 (21 November 1927), p. 1343, appended table.


procedures to be followed by all private companies when they made a request for the tests.54 In the equivalent stage before the completion of the NPL tank in Britain, similar services were supposed to be available at cost (as mentioned by W. H. White), which was the overhead charge and took no account of use of the equipment, but this was not spelled out.55 The NPL tank at that stage had no official rule about the fees to be paid by private companies in return for testing. It is true that the Scheme for the Constitution of an Advisory Tank Committee and for the Working of the National Experimental Tank stated on 18 June 1909 that ‘they [the Advisory Tank Committee] shall specify … the principles on which fees are to be charged.’56 However, without any public announcement of such principles, the official opening of the tank took place on 5 July 1911. And yet, despite the situation, the tank carried out nine ship model tests for private companies within its first year of operation ended 31 December 1912.57 This lack of precise rules regarding fees becomes still more striking when we remember that testing for private companies had been one of the main bases for the original construction plan of the tank as conceived by W. H. White. The number of such tests began to be listed in the Annual Report of the NPL, with ‘Models Tested for Firms’ appearing as a separate category from 1912, and soon achieved a fairly stable state (see Table 5.5).58 The generally accepted idea that customary law is common and effective in Britain, whereas positive law is so in Japan does not provide a full Table 5.5 Number of ship model tests for private firms at the NPL Year

Number

1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920

4 23 66 29 21 54 41 44 53

Note: Year here indicates year ending 31 March so that there is a difference in the number for 1912 in this table and that given in the text, which is for the same year ending 31 December. The numbers in the table include standard ships tested for H M Government during the First World War. Source: National Physical Laboratory, Report for the Year, 1920, p. 132.


explanation in sociological terms for these differences in rules for the testing services provided for private companies by the national tanks in both countries. This is because the difference with regard to the existence or absence of an endogenous culture integrating the interaction between science, technology and industrial society is relevant here again. In Britain, groups of scientists and engineers certified individual professionals’ specialization and got due rewards in return for accomplishing work fulfilling the standards. This is what the above endogenous culture means, and thus this culture is unwritten but effective in controlling the interaction between individual scientists/engineers and their groups, and with other sub-groups in industrial society.59 The absence of such an endogenous culture in contemporary Japan could have caused the disintegration of that interaction if a conscious effort had not been made to produce other functionally equivalent means to maintain it. What is most efficient for this purpose is to impose upon the key agents relevant rules articulating the interaction in the greatest possible detail beforehand and keep them in an explicit form. The need must have been particularly vital to contemporary Japan which was in the middle of dramatic changes in that interaction, caused by the introduction of the results of professionalized science and technology such as apparatus for R&D like the experimental tank. The detailed and early stipulation of the rules for the tank tests and for the test services provided for private companies can be understood as satisfying this need. From this understanding, it follows that these differences in the rules observed in the national tanks for R&D in Britain and Japan did not result merely from a national tradition or a historical accident. It resulted from, among other things, the fact that Japan was at the time a latecomer in industrialization. This obliged Japan to transfer and assimilate only the conveyable results of the ship revolution by separating them from the surrounding endogenous technological culture which would take much more time than the practical results to develop in society. Given the short time available for a latecomer to industrialize, it is quite natural that the latecomer consciously gave priority to the industrially useful results of Western science and technology which could be transferred far more quickly than the endogenous culture within which the results were originally produced.60 By the same token, we can observe in contemporary official documents in Japan the sort of impatience a latecomer would have felt when it noticed a delay in reproducing results. The resolution entitled ‘Improvement of Ship Research Facilities’ (Senpaku Kenkyu Shisetsu no Seibi) of 23 January 1922, passed by the Maritime Administration Committee of the Ministry of Communications, gives a typical example. The purpose of the resolution was to accelerate the process of building the National Experimental Tank for R&D. And it states: ‘Ship research facilities in Japan are still far behind those even in third-class maritime powers in Europe!’61


Thus the existence or absence of explicit rules controlling the test services provided by the national experimental tanks in Britain and Japan had a relevant social background in each country. The endogenous culture controlling the interaction between professionalized science and technology and industrial society provided Britain with a background of one kind, while the necessity of absorbing the conveyable results within a short time provided Japan with another kind. This difference would make a difference in the nature of the rules. In so far as the British joint management of the national tank by the private and public sectors became viable based on the endogenous culture which pre-existed in the form of customs and habits integrating the interaction of professionalized science and technology and the society, the explicit rules, if any, would tend to be auxiliary in that management. They must have been respected only when they served the particular purpose of the tank, and been considered revisable if they no longer matched that purpose. The lack of any such endogenous culture, on the other hand, must have been the factor which obliged Japan to select governmental management of the tank, because this lack meant that it was necessary that explicitly articulated rules be created by some public authority to integrate the interaction. In this situation, the rules would be totally imposed from above, and the stipulations would tend to be respected as unalterable. This contrasting nature of rules can be defined as a difference between ordermade and ready-made rules, where the former emerge only as occasion demands but are efficacious in operation, and the given form and contents of the latter are strictly adhered to.62

Patterns of institutionalization Here the institutionalization of science and technology is a useful term to explore the fine structure of these similarities and differences and to clarify their sociological implications. The institutionalization of science and technology means the entire process through which the stable ways of thinking, and the patterns of behaviour defining the role of scientists, engineers and their communities in relation to a wider society emerge.63 With this term, we can deepen our understanding of the similarities and differences in the process of nationalization of the experimental tanks in Britain and Japan as patterns in the institutionalization of science and technology. Britain and Japan both incorporated the experimental tank in national R&D systems as a result of an institutionalization which found a way to deal with strong resistance and to overcome difficulties in fund-raising for basic research. At the same time, the resulting patterns of institutionalization were significantly different, in that the British system was a product of the public and private sectors, while the Japanese one was a product of the public sector alone. This difference behind the similar national research institutes for R&D was due to the existence or absence of an endogenous culture controlling the


interaction between professionalized science and technology and industrial society. The different process of nationalization of the tanks can be thus construed simply as an example showing the different patterns of the institutionalization of science and technology in an aspect of ‘spin-off’ during the ship revolution. Within this understanding, stressing the importance of a pre-existing and endogenous culture in the process of the institutionalization of science and technology, it is easier for us to understand the simplicity of organization of the William Froude National Tank at the NPL when it was first established (see Table 5.6). We can understand that this organization (a simple hierarchy) must have been, to a significant extent, the result of the pre-existing and endogenous culture, based on which there must have been less need for the explicit articulation of every rule and aspect of organization concerned. The basic logic employed here is that the richer the pre-existing and endogenous culture in the process of the institutionalization of science and technology, the simpler the formal rules and organization generated, because that culture controlling the interaction between science, technology and industrial society was able to act as a functional equivalent to fundamental rules controlling the interaction. This logic can be applied to independent cases, because the same logic enables us also to understand an unexpectedly simpler organizational form observed in the British company compared with the Japanese one involved in ‘spin-on’ of the marine turbine mentioned in Chapter 4. As Tables 4.6 and 4.2 in Chapter 4 show, the rules defining the roles within the authority hierarchy of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard were at least triple-branching, while those of Parsons Marine Steam Company were single-branching at the time when they developed and transferred the marine turbine.64 A commonsense understanding would be that an organization would have produced

Table 5.6 The employee structure of the National Experimental Tank at the NPL on its establishment in 1911 Superintendent (1) Assistant (1) Junior Assistant (1) Draughtsman (1) Mechanics (2) Joiner (1) Moulder (1) Tracer (1) Office (1) Note: The numbers in brackets indicate the number of persons. Source: National Physical Laboratory, Report for the Year, 1911, p. 88.


more elaboration in terms of the role definitions in developing something new than in simply transferring what had been originally developed. When we look at these two companies influential in the ‘spin-on’ of the marine turbine based on the concept of the patterns of institutionalization, however, the fact that the difference is the other way round can be seen as a quite natural outcome. By employing the above logic, we can understand that both were equally patterns of institutionalization within private spheres, but the different forms resulted from the intervening social backgrounds. The absence of an endogenous culture providing the fundamental rules linking science, technology and sub-groups of industrial society must have necessitated articulated role definitions within the Japanese private corporation that was at the time developing the role of in-house R&D from scratch. The logic regarding the mutual relationship between culture and rules thus seems to hold good both in the public sphere, as represented by the nationalization process of the experimental tank, and in the private one.

Conclusion The overall points made in this chapter can be summarized as follows: 1. Both Britain and Japan faced the problem of how to carry out the nationalization of the experimental tanks in the process of accommodation of the tanks in each society for the wider use of the private sector. In their endeavours for ‘spin-off’, both countries experienced similar problems: (a) long delay, (b) strong resistance, and (c) difficulty in fund raising for basic research. 2. However, the two countries solved the problems in significantly different ways. The national research institute set up to incorporate the experimental tank had an organization managed in collaboration by the governmental and private sectors in Britain, whereas in Japan it was managed totally by the government. 3. This difference was neither accidental nor beyond explanation. It was an inevitable outcome in the sense that it originated in the different social backgrounds of the two countries. Britain had had a long prehistory of the professionalization of science and technology and, as a result, an endogenous culture which integrated the interaction between science, technology and the sub-groups of the society evolved prior to the formal rules designed to have similar effects. Japan had no such endogenous culture with an equivalent function, because it transferred only the results of professionalized science and technology within the short time available for a latecomer to industrialize. 4. Such a difference in the social backgrounds could explain why the rules for the national tanks differed in form and nature in the two countries.


As the lack of stipulation of the fees for tank test services to be paid by private firms symbolizes, the rules observed in the process of the British institutionalization of science and technology were liable to be invisible, simple, and substantially alterable. This is because the pre-existing and endogenous culture determined the fundamental rules informing the interaction between scientists, engineers and other sub-groups of the society (for example, private firms). In contrast, in Japan, a written form entering into detail tended to have to be imposed on every rule for compliance (for example, the detailed stipulation of the fees of the Mejiro national tank), because of the lack of equivalent fundamental rules given by the endogenous culture in their interaction. Of course, these points are made within the limited scope of the nationalization of the experimental tank, which has been taken as an important example of ‘spin-off’ during the ship revolution. However, they contain at the same time an important general implication. The implication comes from a careful distinction between the results of professionalized science and technology and the entire process to enable professionalized science and technology to produce the results, which can be called the infrastructure to produce the results. As we have seen, Japan did not transfer professionalized science and technology as it stood in Britain, but took industrially useful results without taking the infrastructure developed within the endogenous culture, and the different way in which science, technology and industrial society were integrated in Japan in the absence of such a culture would continue to play a functionally equivalent role in the subsequent process of the country’s industrialization. The military-industrial-university complex elucidated in earlier chapters could be understood as the different form of integration of this kind in prewar Japan. Since the general understanding is that such complexes are the product of the wartime mobilization of science and technology, there are two unique points that are put forward here as to the nature of the complex in prewar Japan. First, the complex was formed well before the wartime mobilization of science and technology, even before the First World War, and was thus highly spontaneous in nature. Second, accordingly, the institutional structure of the complex included, as described and analysed in earlier chapters, a highly informal aspect in the sense that there were few formal and explicitly stipulated rules governing the overall interaction between the technology gatekeepers involved. It is true that this informal institutional structure began to be replaced by more formal and explicitly stipulated rules throughout the Japanese wartime mobilization of science and technology starting in the 1930s, a significant snapshot of which will be given in Chapter 6. However, before that period, this informal institutional structure between organizational spheres of the complex coexisted with the explicitly stipulated


rules within the R&D organizations (for example, the Mejiro tank) created as a result of ‘spin-off’. It is extremely difficult for non-Western societies to foster transferred results of professionalized science and technology (for example, the experimental tank) and to achieve their ‘spin-off’ in the same form (for example, their nationalization within an endogenous culture) as in the original context where the results were produced. In general, a culture cannot grow within a short time, particularly in a different context with no accumulation of relevant social backgrounds to nurture it. Without the relevant backgrounds integrating the interaction between professionalized science and technology and society, therefore, inevitably ‘spin-off’ in early twentieth-century Japan proceeded with a pattern of institutionalization different from that observed in the original context. Nor is there any sociological reason to take this difference as a result of a gap between the ‘normal’ endogenous culture integrating the interaction in Britain and a Japanese military-industrialuniversity complex ‘deviating’ from that culture. In general, no criteria can rank different patterns of institutionalization of science and technology on a one-dimensional scale. What this sociologically implies is that different social backgrounds with or without the endogenous culture should be treated on an equal footing in that they play a functionally equivalent role in determining the patterns of institutionalization within each society, although the realized patterns are structurally different from each other. Different social backgrounds could thus produce significant structural variations in achieving ‘spin-off’ during the ship revolution.65

6 Conclusion: Beyond Success or Failure

From 3 to 7 July 1911, just one year before the end of the Meiji period, the jubilee of the INA was held in London. It began with a private dinner at the Ritz hotel given by Mr Charles E. Ellis (Hon. Treasurer of the Institution) on the 3rd, and ended with a dinner and reception at the Savoy hotel given by His Majesty’s Government on the 7th. The International Congress in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering was held in between. Seventeen foreign governments were invited to attend the official meetings. Japan dispatched six delegates to the meetings including Kyoji Suehiro, mentioned in Chapter 5. It is noteworthy that to the Proceedings of this International Congress in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering made up of twentyone papers including eleven foreign papers, Japan contributed four, the largest number of any foreign country.1 The first paper was by Motoki Kondo, Rear-Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy, with the title ‘Progress of naval construction in Japan’. The second, ‘The development of merchant shipbuilding in Japan’, was by Seiichi Terano, mentioned in Chapter 3, and M. Yukawa, Director of the Mercantile Marine Bureau. The third, ‘Remarks on the design and service performance of the transpacific liners Tenyo Maru and Chiyo Maru’, was by S. Terano and Chuzaburo Shiba, also mentioned in Chapter 3. The fourth, by Terugoro Fujii (also mentioned in Chapter 3), was entitled ‘Progress of naval engineering in Japan’.2 All four papers described the rapid progress in naval architecture and marine engineering in Japan that had been achieved within the extremely short period from the Meiji Restoration to 1911, even shorter than the history of the INA up to that time. And these descriptions of the Japanese success were warmly welcomed by those attending, partly because of the general atmosphere of courtesy of the jubilee. There was, however, one important and delicately expressed exception to this general attitude. During the discussion of the second paper, read by S. Terano and M. Yukawa, William H. White, who was then an Honorary Vice-President of the INA, remarked as follows: ‘I should not wonder if Japan eventually becomes a 145


serious competitor with European countries in the production of shipping of all classes, although at present that condition has not been reached.’3 This remark is a typical expression of the ambivalent feeling of forerunners in industrialization when they see the advance of latecomers’ industrialization which they once assisted and which has turned out to be more rapid than they expected. The feeling is usually a combination of admiration at the rapid advances achieved by latecomers and a warning of severe competition and possibly conflict with them in the future.4 In fact, thirty years later, Japan went to war with the US and Britain based on such rapid progress in naval architecture and marine engineering for both commercial and military purposes, backed up and utilized by the wartime mobilization of science and technology which started up full-scale in the 1930s. This final chapter extends the examination of the characteristics of the military-industrialuniversity complex within the broader context of this wartime mobilization of science and technology, and explores a pitfall inherent in the development trajectory of the ship revolution in Japan, a trajectory which had been determined by the technology gatekeepers as described and analysed in the previous chapters. The chapter first summarizes the main points made in the previous chapters, and integrates these points into the overall structure and function of the ship revolution. It then gives the broader context of the wartime mobilization of science and technology in Japan around the 1930s with particular reference to the setting up of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Nihon Gakujutsu Shinko Kai) and the Board of Technology (Gijutsu In). The earlier chapters’ description and analysis of the spontaneously formed military-industrial-university complex will be elaborated within this broader context in order to extend the examination of its characteristics further. In particular, based on the trajectory of technology development in prewar and wartime Japan along the path set by the technology gatekeepers, the military-industrial-university complex and the wartime mobilization system, a pitfall in the trajectory will be clarified with particular focus on a littleknown but serious and, at the time, mystifying failure of the Japanese type naval turbine which occurred immediately before the Second World War. After demonstrating the significance of this failure in the development of prewar Japanese marine science and technology, the chapter examines references and records written at the time of the failure to show how it was kept secret for so long. It then describes and analyses the failure in detail, based upon newly discovered materials in the possession of Ryutaro Shibuya. Finally, it discusses the implications of the failure for the development trajectory of the technology. Based on the above description and analysis, this final chapter presents a new perspective incorporating the ‘spin-on’ and ‘spin-off’ described in Chapter 4 and 5 in the overall structure and function of the ship revolution in both peacetime and wartime. And Japanese industrialization is redefined, not only from the perspective of the roles played by

Conclusion: Beyond Success or Failure 147

the technology gatekeepers effecting successful technology transfer and development, but also from the perspective of structural pitfalls inherent in the process.

The structure and function of the ship revolution To begin with, the main points made in the previous chapters can be summarized as follows. Chapter 1 demonstrated that Japan’s industrialization and the ship revolution were intimately related around the turn of the century, by making clear the general importance of the ship revolution in industrial society at the time and offering frameworks and facts basic for understanding the relationship. The fact that Japan consciously adopted strategies for its industrialization within a long-term perspective is basic, among other things, for an understanding of that industrialization. This chapter set out the strategies adopted by Japan, particularly during its initial industrialization phase, in terms of the institutional structure to support and utilize science and technology. The Ministry of Engineering and the Engineering College constituted an integrated system in which fostering qualified engineers and providing their career opportunities were directly coupled. Due to this institutional strategy, industrialization and professionalization proceeded efficiently in parallel. Particularly because a significant departure from this initial institutional strategy was an essential element of a new stage of industrialization starting around the turn of the century, the new technology gatekeeper and composite models are required to describe and analyse the departure appropriately. Only with the empirical evidence of composite industrialization by the technology gatekeepers that these two new models indicate can the ship revolution and the composite industrialization at the time be properly understood. Chapter 2 provided the detailed description and analysis of the behaviours of the technology gatekeepers at the time when they first encountered the ship revolution. It particularly focused on how the gatekeepers handled the enormous technology gap existing between Britain and Japan at the turn of the century. The chapter took the example of the experimental tank, the dual-use technology that revolutionized modern ship design and therefore became indispensable in the contemporary struggle for global hegemony, and analysed the approaches of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard and the Imperial Japanese Navy, the two main technology gatekeepers involved in the transfer. Rather than through administrative guidance, as seen today, the transfer of experimental tank technology was made through these two different agents independently, but based on an informal interplay. There was no agreement or arrangement made in advance between them as to action to be taken in the period preceding its first transfer to Japan in 1908. Mitsubishi introduced a single type of experimental tank without any prior selection procedures, which strongly suggests a speculative and innovative


approach (in a sense, non-rational behaviour). By contrast, a different type was selected and transferred by the Navy after a number of types had been evaluated (in a sense, rational behaviour). As a whole, however, the overall institutional structure of the transfer was not through government guidance alone nor through civilian initiative alone, but the combined product of both. This combined structure resulted particularly from the Navy’s flexible role in making the overall transfer process optimal based on its informal monitoring of Mitsubishi’s approach. This composite structure has profound implications for understanding the institutional structure of Japan’s industrialization process, profound enough to overturn the stereotypes of government-directed industrialization and their revised versions, and should prompt a thorough re-examination of that structure. Chapter 3 elaborated on this composite structure by describing and analysing the roles played by the two technology gatekeepers, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Mitsubishi, in transferring the marine steam turbine. By scrutinizing the structure of the process of the transfer of this typical product innovation in contemporary dual-use technology, the chapter provided valuable clues to elucidating a prewar prototype of the military-industrialuniversity complex in Japan. Two points were made. First, the Navy played a strategic role embodying rational behaviour by undertaking prior inquiries and the examination and selection of different types of technology, one from Britain, the other from the US. After their introduction, however, it mainly let the invisible hand of the market decide how the new technology took root. Second, Mitsubishi played an entrepreneurial role not reducible to rational behaviour alone. Without prior inquiries and examination of different types leading to selection, it sent employees to a British turbine maker, thus taking the first step towards transferring the marine turbine one year earlier than the Navy’s first official step. Taking considerable risks, it even constructed the first turbine ship in Japan before the Navy’s selection procedures had been completed. These two different roles formed a unique structure of technology transfer from which a prototype military-industrial-university complex emerged. The separate paths of the Navy and Mitsubishi in the transfer of the marine turbine converged within a surprisingly short period (ten years). This was due to the personal network of Navy and Mitsubishi engineers, based on their common background as graduates of the Imperial University of Tokyo. Without such a structure forming the military-industrialuniversity complex, latecomers’ advantages could not have been exploited. Chapter 4 further elaborated on the military-industrial-university complex within a comparative perspective. It disentangled the complex social contexts of the British development and the Japanese transfer of the marine turbine and analysed their similarities and differences. Particular reference was made to the ‘spin-on’ aspects in the development of the marine turbine and its transfer, the whole process through which a commercial high technology played direct and/or indirect roles in relation to military use in each country.


The popular view of the military-industrial-university complex in the 1914–45 period has tended to see the marine turbine as a typical case of ‘spin-off’ from the military to the private sector. Both in the British development and the Japanese transfer, however, this view proves to be simplistic. There are two reasons. First, although the turbine, once developed, was rapidly employed in naval vessels, it was a British civilian professional engineer, Charles A. Parsons, who started the development of the first marine turbine, based on an insight from thermodynamics. Successful results were not obtained until he set up a separate venture business devoting itself to R&D, the Marine Steam Turbine Company, in 1894, for the purpose of exhaustive full-scale experiments. It was only after an experimental ship had been constructed and tested by this venture business that the Royal Navy first adopted the marine turbine for naval vessels. Second, in parallel with the positive action of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the prior investigation and selection of the marine turbine, Mitsubishi’s entrepreneurial pioneering experience in constructing the first turbine ship in Japan contributed independently to subsequent marine turbine development by providing data indispensable for producing new types. Both countries went through this ‘spin-on’ in such a way that ‘spin-on’ was coupled with de facto ‘spin-off’ effected through the market for production of naval vessels. The difference between the two countries lay in the social outcome of spin-on. In the British development, spin-on produced a single dual-use technology based on large initial investment, whereas in the Japanese transfer it functioned to provide an independent channel for assimilating and improving the technology. Latecomers’ advantages should be reconsidered in the light of these differences in the social context of spin-on. Chapter 5 in turn described and analysed the spin-off processes from the military to the private sector through which the experimental tanks were institutionalized as national research institutes in Britain and Japan. The British naval architect William Froude first developed the experimental tank, now a normal R&D facility in modern shipbuilding, with financial assistance from the Royal Navy in 1872. But spin-off from it through its institutionalization as a national research institute was extremely delayed, due to stubborn resistance and funding difficulties. As a result, the use of this first full-scale tank was mostly confined to the design of naval vessels. The first institutional breakthrough was made only in the first decade of the twentieth century. And Japan experienced similar problems in the 1920s. However, the solution found to the problem of how to ensure spin-off was significantly different from that in Britain. The establishment of a national research institute for tank experiments funded exclusively by the government (Ministry of Communications) provided the initial institutional breakthrough in Japan. By contrast, the British national research institute was funded initially by the patronage of the private sector (shipbuilding companies, private donors and others) only later supplemented by funds from the public sector (the NPL).


This difference originated from the process of institutionalization of research itself in the respective countries, rather than ingrained national tradition or mere historical accident. In particular, the presence in Britain and the absence in Japan of an endogenous professional culture controlling the interaction between professionalized science and technology and industrial society was a decisive factor contributing to the difference. These descriptions and analyses of the ship revolution with particular reference to the roles played by the technology gatekeepers within a comparative perspective can be integrated into two different but equally important insights by introducing a pair of terms, structure and function. As defined in Chapter 4, structure means a particular configuration of agents involved in the ship revolution that can be observed in common across British and Japanese social contexts, while function means the objective results which structure in the above sense brought about in each society. The main points made in Chapter 2 and 3 are that the structure and function of the Japanese military-industrial-university complex were formed spontaneously, based on the relatively autonomous technology gatekeepers during the ship revolution. That is to say, this complex had a structure such that the different agents involved were formally independent of each other, with a close informal interrelationship on an equal footing through various personal ties and the exchange of information. The function fulfilled by the military sector was quite rational in technology evaluation and selection, while that fulfilled by the industrial sector was non-rational and entrepreneurial in the sense that the function made possible the daring introduction of technology and brought about its assimilation much earlier than would be expected in an uncertain situation. The function fulfilled by the university (Imperial University of Tokyo) was to combine these two contrasting technology gatekeepers by providing both with personnel who had received a common training in a professionalized science and technology. And the function fulfilled by this military-industrial-university complex as a whole was the transfer, assimilation and adaptation of the marine turbine and the experimental tank, the two key dual-use technologies of the ship revolution. The main points elaborated on in Chapter 4 and 5 are this structure and function of the Japanese military-industrial-university complex within a comparative perspective with Britain where the marine turbine and the experimental tank were originally invented. Two points are elaborated on. One is the spin-on aspect of the military-industrial-university complex, the other is its spin-off aspect. From the Parsons–Mitsubishi comparison, it appears that both Britain and Japan had a similar structure in terms of spinon from the private sector in that spin-on in both countries was coupled with spin-off from the military effected through the market for production of naval vessels. However, its function was obviously different: Britain led the development of the marine turbine, and Japan adapted it with the result that spin-on in Japan gave rise to an independent channel for assimilating


and improving the technology during its transfer. In short, from the point of view of spin-on, the idea of similar structure with different functions is relevant to understanding the structure and function of the ship revolution within a comparative perspective. As for spin-off, on the other hand, the situation is one of different structure with equivalent function. This can be seen in the processes of institutionalization of the national experimental tanks in Britain and in Japan. The British NPL and Japanese Mejiro tanks fulfilled equivalent functions in that they solved similar problems such as strong resistance from society and difficulty in fund-raising for basic research. However, the resultant institutional structure of these two tanks was very different: the NPL tank had the structure of joint management and control by the government and private sectors, while the Mejiro tank had the structure of single-agent management and control only by the government. Thus when we look at the way in which Japan went through the ship revolution within a comparative perspective, the Japanese military-industrialuniversity complex achieved spin-on by adapting the British ship revolution in a manner which fits the idea of similar structure with different function, and spin-off in a completely different manner which fits, in contrast, the idea of different structure with equivalent function. Within a comparative perspective with Britain, these two contrasting ideas should be employed simultaneously to fully understand the Japanese military-industrialuniversity complex which was spontaneously formed during the ship revolution around the turn of the century. How then can this understanding of the complex be further extended to the period after the turn of the century? The wartime mobilization of science and technology provides an important social context within which this question can be properly pursued.

The wartime mobilization of science and technology and the military-industrial-university complex The formal foundation of the wartime mobilization of science and technology in prewar Japan was provided by the Wartime Mobilization Law (Kokka Sodoin Ho), which was issued in 1938. This law incorporated the legal foundation of research done for war purposes into two clauses. Clause No. 25 states that ‘When necessary for the purpose of wartime mobilization … the government can order the director of any research institute to do research for that purpose.’ In addition, Clause No. 31 states that: When necessary for the purpose of wartime mobilization, the government can order any research institute to submit a report relevant to that purpose or send government officials to any relevant place to investigate the progress of work, materials, and the account books concerning research done there.5


In the next year, 1939, the Research Mobilization Ordinance (Sodoin Shiken Kenkyu Rei), Imperial Ordinance No. 474 enacted based on that law, gave detailed prescriptions for the enforcement of the law. It states: The competent ministers can determine the subject, method, scale, and other related matters regarding research to be done at any research institute and related firm and order their directors to do research. (Clause No. 2) In the case of research necessary for the purpose of war, the ‘competent ministers’ meant the Army and Navy ministers (Clause No. 10).6 These formal legal foundations gave rise to one of the salient features of the wartime mobilization of science and technology that the military-industrialuniversity complex formed of agents formally independent of each other tended to lack, namely the highly hierarchical nature of the relationships between the agents involved, which were formally authorized by the top down control of the military sector. Under the law and the ordinance, the military sector controlled the overall mobilization, in which the industrial sector and universities had to obey orders given by the military. To be accurate, various other institutional arrangements for wartime mobilization of science and technology were made both before and after the law and the ordinance. It originated two decades earlier in the Munition Industry Mobilization Law (Gunju Kogyo Doin Ho) of 1918 and in the Second Division of the National State Agency of the Cabinet (Naikaku Kokusei In) set up in 1920:7 and after the enactment of the law and the ordinance, numerous research institutes affiliated with the government, universities and firms were set up. Going beyond the formal legal foundation given by the law and the ordinance, a closer look at these institutional arrangements enables us to characterize the wartime mobilization of science and technology in prewar Japan in a more substantial and significant manner. Among them, we highlight here the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Board of Technology, the one set up before and the other after the enactment of the law and the ordinance. The reason for this particular focus is that in addition to introducing the highly hierarchical system mentioned above, both organizations symbolized, in different ways, significant aspects of the transformation of the spontaneously formed military-industry-university complex during the wartime mobilization of science and technology from 1930. The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (abbreviated to the JSPS hereafter) was set up in December 1932 as an extra-governmental organization of the Ministry of Education based on an extraordinary Imperial Grant of 1.5 million yen from the Emperor, a governmental subsidy of one million yen, and contributions from the industrial sector.8 Its purpose was the advancement of natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, with a particular emphasis on creative research to make possible self-reliant development and success in international industrial competition.9 Behind this, there was a parallel


orientation to the wartime mobilization of science and technology. According to the draft prospectus of the JSPS produced in May 1932, the earliest we can confirm today, this orientation was expressed as follows: The general trend of the world now requires … the development of new weapons based on scientific research so that the national defence can be strengthened by and firmly based on strong industrial power. In this situation, it is a great pity that Japanese science, technology and industry are keen only to imitate the achievements of foreign countries.10 One of the most important features of the JSPS is that it was the first public body to introduce a large-scale system for grants-in-aid during the period leading up to the wartime mobilization of science and technology. ‘Largescale system’ here means two things. First, its purpose was not merely the advancement of particular areas of science and technology but an overall advancement of learning including science, technology, social sciences and humanities for grander purposes. The draft prospectus of May 1932 states that: ‘its purpose is to promote research in natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and their application for practical use, to contribute to the development of industry and to the perfection of national defence, and to advance the welfare of mankind.’11 As a result, it stressed not only interdisciplinary research, taking up ‘borderline problems between individual specialities’ and ‘crossing the boundaries of different disciplines’ (for example, physics, chemistry, industrial chemistry, mechanical engineering, strength of materials) but also collaboration between universities, the government, the military, and industry. In particular, it gave top priority to the ‘close collaboration between universities and the industrial sector, … which was very weak and defective in the previous Japanese research system.’12 The second meaning of ‘large-scale system’ is that the amount of grantsin-aid to be given to researchers based on these general ideas was far greater than the previous financial aid from the programmes of the Ministry of Education, or of the Ministry of Commerce or Industry (Shoko Sho), or of the Imperial Academy (Teikoku Gakushi In), none of which exceeded 100,000 yen per year.13 The original budget plan for the JSPS appropriated an annual budget amounting to 2 million yen exclusively for grants-in-aid to be given to researchers (see Table 6.1). Another reason for the size of the grants-in-aid that deserves to be noted was that at the time when they were decided, on 6 August 1932, there was no prospect of the extraordinary Imperial Grant of 1.5 million yen from the Emperor (given on 20 August 1932).14 Despite the fact that the JSPS was thus in two ways the first large-scale system for the promotion and industrial utilization of science and technology implemented against the background of the wartime mobilization of science and technology, it was unsatisfactory in the extent of involvement of

154 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace Table 6.1 The original budget plan for the JSPS in 1932 Item

Amount (¥)

Grants-in-aid for researchers Promotion of collaborative research Academic publication Office expenses Research expeditions

2,000,000 200,000 130,000 120,000 50,000

Total

2,500,000

Source: Gakujutsu Sangyo Shinko In Jigyo Hi no Gaiyo narabini sono Zaigen ni kansuru Shirabe (The budget plan for the JSPS), 6 August 1932 (kept by the JSPS).

the industrial sector in its activities. First, throughout the prewar period the contribution from the industrial sector was far less than government expenditure, the only exception being fiscal 1933 (government: 700,000 yen, industrial sector: 1.807 million yen).15 Second, and more importantly, there were very few members from the industrial sector on the board of directors of the JSPS, where all JSPS business including the recommendation of the proposals deserving grants-in-aid was finally decided. For example, when it was decided to give a grant-in-aid (1400 yen) to an industrially useful study of the steam turbine (‘A Study of the Efficiency of the Nozzles and Blades of the Steam Turbine’ by Professor Sugao Sugawara of Kyoto University) in 1937, only two out of the 25 members of the board of directors of the JSPS represented the industrial sector (see Table 6.2).16 This striking under-representation of the industrial sector on the board of directors did not change throughout the period of the wartime mobilization of science and technology (1932–45).17 In a sense, this may have been an almost inevitable result of the fact that the Ministry of Education took the initiative in the setting up and the management of the JSPS, since the industrial sector was beyond the purview of the ministry. It was this problem of limited authority due to sectionalism of the ministries concerned that the Board of Technology was set up to break through for the purpose of the total wartime mobilization of science and technology. The board was set up in January 1942. The earliest document proposing the setting up of the board that we are able to confirm today was produced on 25 June 1941, and was entitled ‘Top Secret: A Proposal for the Expansion of Research Institutes for Technological Development’ (Gijutsu Kenkyu Kikan no Kakuju An).18 According to this, the purpose of the board was to ‘achieve self-reliant development of technology … and the systematic organization of research institutes and the related government authorities for the purpose of the coming total war’. In the light of this purpose, it evaluated the existing research system in Japan and pointed out what it regarded as its ‘defects’

Conclusion: Beyond Success or Failure 155 Table 6.2 The members of the board of directors of the JSPS in 1937 Post/distinction

Additional title/post/distinction

Prime Minister Vice-Minister of Education Member of the House of Peers Vice-Admiral of the Navy

Duke

Director of the Institute of Physics & Chemical Research Member of the House of Peers President of Osaka Imperial University President of Keio University President of the Imperial Academy Admiral of the Navy President of Waseda University Vice-Minister of Commerce & Industry Vice-President of Tokyo Chamber of Commerce & Industry Member of the House of Peers President of Tokyo Imperial University Vice-Admiral of the Navy President of Kyoto Imperial University Prof. Emeritus of Tokyo Imperial University Lieutenant-General of the Army President of Tohoku Imperial University President of Teikoku Nenryo, Ltd. Member of the House of Peers Director, Ministry of Education General of the Army

Director of the Technical Headquarters of the Navy Viscount President of Sumitomo, Ltd.

Privy Councillor

Member of the Imperial Academy

Director of the Technical Headquarters of the Army Member of the Imperial Academy Baron Baron

Source: Annual Report of the JSPS, no. 5 (1938).

in light of the emphasis put on the need for the close collaboration of researchers and the industrial sector in the setting up of the JSPS. It states: The research institutes of firms are doing only research that profits them. On the other hand, national research institutes are devoting themselves to the production of papers without due consideration of other urgent matters, so that the responsibility for industrial research cannot be left to them.19 Researchers are unaware of urgent problems whose solution is required by the nation and by the industrial sector. And there is no collaboration between researchers and the industrial sector.20 The evaluation made in the proposal was even more radical in that it also pointed out the defect of the previous Japanese research system as a whole


resulting from sectionalism within and between research institutes as follows: ‘There is sectionalism throughout in the evaluation and management of human resources in research institutes, which totally prevents the efficient allocation of reward and resources based on achievements.’21 Based on the realization of these previous ‘defects’, the Board of Technology was expected from the outset to overcome sectionalism and become a single unified government office integrating science and technology policy for wartime mobilization. In fact, during the process of implementation of the proposal for setting up the board, there were discussions about the coordination of the business to be transferred from other related government authorities and integrated in the board with assistance of the Agency of Planning (Kikaku In), which took the initiative in the process.22 Four documents survive to prove this effort to coordinate the business to be transferred to and integrated in the Board of Technology:23 ‘Examples of Research Institutes to be Transferred’ (Ikan Kenkyu Kikan Reiji), n.d. ‘Top Secret: On the Business to be Transferred to the Board of Technology from Related Authorities’ (Gokuhi: Gijutsu In Sosetsu ni atari Kaku Sho yori Ikan subeki Jiko ni kansuru Ken), n.d. ‘Top Secret: A Note on the Business to be Transferred to the Board of Technology from Related Authorities’ (Gokuhi: Gijutsu In Sosetsu ni atari Kaku Sho yori Ikan subeki Jiko ni kansuru Oboegaki), 29 May 1941. ‘Top Secret: The Business to be Transferred to the Board of Technology and Its Research Institutes from Related Authorities’ (Gokuhi: Gijutsu In narabini Sogo Kagaku Gijutsu Kenkyujo ni Kaku Sho yori Ikan subeki Jiko), 7 August 1941. As a result of this effort, the business of industrial standards was transferred from Section 7 (Science Section) of the Agency of Planning and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and the business of the industrial standards for aircraft production was transferred from the Ministry of Communications. Since the Patent Office (Tokkyo Kyoku) and the Central Aeronautical Research Institute (Chuo Koku Kenkyujo) were transferred from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Ministry of Communications respectively to the direct control of the Cabinet after the setting up of the Board of Technology, the business of these two organizations was also transferred to the board in April 1942.24 Table 6.3 shows the tasks eventually integrated and controlled by the new Board of Technology. At first sight, this division of duties of the board appears not only well organised but also comprehensive enough to carry out the integrated wartime mobilization of science and technology under the centralized auspices

Conclusion: Beyond Success or Failure 157 Table 6.3 Division of duties of the Board of Technology General Affairs Department (Somubu) General Affairs Section (Somu Ka) Management & Administration Section (Kanri Ka) Invention Section (Soi Ka) Investigation Section (Chosa Ka) Research Mobilization Department (Kenkyu Doin Bu) Research Mobilization Section (Kenkyu Doin Ka) 1st Research Section (Kenkyu Dai 1 Ka) 2nd Research Section (Kenkyu Dai 2 Ka) 3rd Research Section (Kenkyu Dai 3 Ka) 4th Research Section (Kenkyu Dai 4 Ka) 5th Research Section (Kenkyu Dai 5 Ka) Production Technology Department (Seisan Gijutsu Bu) Planning Section (Kikaku Ka) Metallurgy Section (Kinzoku Gijutsu Ka) Chemical Engineering Section (Kagaku Gijutsu Ka) Mechanical Engineering Section (Kikai Gijutsu Ka) Electrical Engineering Section (Denki Gijutsu Ka) Industrial Standards Department (Kikaku Bu) Industrial Materials Standards Section (Zairyo Kikaku Ka) Industrial Products Standards Section (Seihin Kikaku Ka) Aircraft Standards Section (Koku Kikaku Ka) 1st Patent Examination Department (Shinsa Dai 1 Bu) Management Section (Gyomu Ka) Application Section (Shutsugantoroku Ka) Inorganic Materials Section (Muki Zairyo Ka) Organic Materials Section (Yuki Zairyo Ka) 2nd Patent Examination Department (Shinsa Dai 2 Bu) Aircraft Section (Koku Ka) Power Technology Section (Doryoku Kikai Ka) Machine Tool Section (Seisan Kikai Ka) Electrical Appliance Section (Denki Ka) Patent Judgement Department (Shinpan Bu) Source: Gijutsu In Jimu Bunsho Kitei (Division of duties of the Board of Technology), first issued on 31 January 1942, revised on 28 February 1942, 2nd revision on 1 September 1943, 3rd revision on 1 November 1943 (Library of the Department of Economics, University of Tokyo).

of the board.25 In reality, however, there were at least two significant deviations from this appearance. First, the involvement of the military sector in the wartime mobilization of science and technology thus organized by the board was far from comprehensive. It was in fact limited to aircraft production. As a typical example, every subject taken up in the 1st to 5th Research Sections of the Research Mobilization Department of the board concerned aircraft production only, without any attention to other subjects relevant to

158 Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace Table 6.4 Duties of research sections of the Board of Technology Research section

Subjects

1st

Airframe, auxiliary machinery of aircraft, Air navigation equipment Engines for aircraft, propellers, other related machinery Precise measurement apparatus, optical apparatus, electrical apparatus to be installed with aircraft Materials, fuels, lubricants for aircraft Aerology, aero-medicine

2nd 3rd 4th 5th Source: As Table 6.3.

war purposes including dual-use marine science and technology as described and analysed in earlier chapters (see Table 6.4). It is known that this extraordinary bias and limitation to aircraft production was due to pressure from the Army calling for the setting up of an Agency of Aeronautics. It is important, in this connection, to note that a very practical document for handling airframe production entitled ‘Top Secret: Mobilization Procedures of the Duties of Superintendents in Charge of the Production of Airframes and their Explanation’ (Kokuki Kitai Shidokan ga Sekinin Suiko no tame Okonau Doin Keitozu oyobi sono Setsumei) had already been produced and circulated in the process of setting up the board on 24 January 1941. Thus, this limited focus on aircraft production must have been decided more than ten months at the least before the outbreak of war with the US and Britain.26 Second, even this sole involvement of the military sector in the wartime mobilization of science and technology, as organized by the board, was only partial in that there was no bilateral relationship between the board and the military and the relationship between the two never developed fully. The business of the board was mostly limited to implementing the directions (for example, performance, specification, number of products) given by the military, rather than developing new weapons based on the wartime mobilization of science and technology. According to Hidetsugu Yagi, who in the 1920s invented the pioneering Yagi antenna, a crucial component technology of radar, and became the president of the Board of Technology in 1944, several hundred projects ‘were assigned to the board by the Army or Navy, the board having no power of refusal’. This was associated with an extremely secretive attitude of the military to outsiders even in this very limited involvement of science and technology in the wartime mobilization. Yagi stated that the military ‘treated civilian scientists as if they were foreigners’ (for example, the military even tried to keep information on apparatus developed by enemy countries secret from outsiders including civilian scientists).27 Thus even at the central governmental authority specially set up to integrate every effort for the wartime mobilization of science and technology,


the cooperation, let alone coordination, with the military sector was very limited and superficial. These realities of the JSPS and the Board of Technology, major institutional arrangements for the mobilization before and after the Wartime Mobilization Law and the Research Mobilization Ordinance, tell us something important about a transformation of the spontaneously formed military-industrial-university complex that had begun in the 1930s. Because of the under-representation of the industrial sector, as manifested in the operation of the JSPS and the very limited involvement of the military sector as manifested in that of the Board of Technology, the military-industrial-university complex began to lose its overall cohesiveness. Particularly in terms of the relationship between the military and industrial sectors, the spontaneously formed complex began to disintegrate. What is important here is the fact that this functional disintegration of the network of relationships linking the military and industrial sectors was taking place just at the same time as the strong structural integration of the complex was formally reinforced by the Wartime Mobilization Law and the Research Mobilization Ordinance. That is to say, the transformation of the militaryindustrial-university complex springing from the ship revolution produced two contrasting characteristics during the wartime mobilization of science and technology: hierarchical integration of its structure on the one hand, functional disintegration of the network of the relationships linking the military and the industrial sectors on the other. And this coexistence of structural integration and functional disintegration during the wartime mobilization provides a suitable background for redefining success or failure in Japan’s composite industrialization, a process which was promoted by the ship revolution. The reason for this is that the ship revolution brought about a serious but little-known failure during this period of wartime mobilization.

Success or failure? In the ‘success story’ accounts of Japan’s industrialization, there are four phases in the development of science and technology: (1) the study of Western science and technology; (2) introduction of Western science and technology; (3) improvement of existing technology; and (4) self-reliant development. As we have seen, when one looks at technological development in prewar Japan within its social context, its trajectory was not so simple.28 Both the progress within each phase and the transition from one phase to another were extremely complex. In particular, we can observe important clues pointing to a complex mixture of success and failure in that progress and transition. Among other things, a failure of the marine turbine developed by the Imperial Japanese Navy which occurred immediately before the outbreak of the Second World War enables us to redefine Japan’s industrialization in peacetime and wartime based on an examination of this complex mixture of


success and failure. The failure was treated as top secret because of its timing. The suppression of information about the failure means that it has not been seriously considered as an event in the social history of science and technology. However, the description and analysis of this failure and the investigation which followed will suggest that the technological development in prewar Japan departed significantly from a simple path leading from the study of Western science and technology to introduction and improvement, then to self-reliant development. This also implies that we need to revise our view of industrialization beyond a simplistic dichotomous understanding in terms of success or failure in both peacetime and wartime. As detailed in Chapter 4, the steam turbine was invented, and finally patented in 1884, by a British engineer C. A. Parsons, who in 1894 obtained a patent for the marine turbine.29 After Parsons’ original invention of the reaction turbine, there appeared multiple types of the impulse turbine (De Laval type in 1889, Rateau type in 1891, Curtis type in 1896, Zölly type in 1899, and so on) as well as of the reaction turbine (Ljungström type in 1910, and others). Competition in performance between these multiple types gradually made them more and more sophisticated and eventually stabilized in the prewar period when the reaction and the impulse turbine were complementary in performance.30 The fact that most naval powers adopted the marine turbine for their naval vessels during the Second World War suggests that it had already become a reliable matured technology in the prewar period. However, the little-known failure of the Japanese type naval turbine which occurred immediately before the Second World War throws doubt on the validity of a unidirectional and one-dimensional view of such a development trajectory of technology. This doubt will be confirmed, and an alternative insight based on this will be elucidated, by examining the above-mentioned failure and its investigation within the social context of the wartime mobilization of science and technology. For this purpose, it is necessary to outline the development trajectory of the Japanese naval turbine.

The development of the Kanpon turbine and its pitfalls Naval turbines of the Imperial Japanese Navy produced up to immediately before the Second World War symbolized the Navy’s success in the development of the self-reliant standardized technologies in the prewar period. As mentioned in Chapter 3, the Kanpon type turbine was developed by the Imperial Japanese Navy about 1920 to thoroughly subsitute self-reliant technology for imported. This naval turbine provides a typical example of a complex mixture of success and failure. It was the standard turbine for Japanese naval vessels from 1920 to 1945 and suffered a serious but little-known failure immediately before the Second World War.31 In order to disentangle the mixture of success and failure in the history of the Kanpon turbine, the background against which it was developed needs to be outlined. From the time of the first adoption of the marine turbine for


battleships (the Aki and the Ibuki) in 1905, based on intensive prior investigations and licence contracts, the Imperial Japanese Navy accumulated experience in the domestic production of marine turbines. Owing to a dual strategy employed by the Navy during the process, which was detailed in Chapter 3, the Navy was able to carefully monitor the qualities of the British, American, and various other Western type turbines throughout and evaluate them (based on this monitoring and evaluation, various intermediate types appeared up to the establishment of the Kanpon type turbine, as shown in Table 3.4 in Chapter 3).32 The First World War produced new circumstances under which the naval turbines that were in the middle of being fostered by this strategy developed further. During and after the war, the operating sea area for the Imperial Japanese Navy became larger, requiring the main turbines of naval vessels to provide more range as well as speed. A reduction gearing adopted by the Navy around the time contributed greatly to the total efficiency of the main turbines, with a favourable effect on range. A single reduction gearing was installed in the first-class destroyers (1300 gross tonnage, 34,000 shaft horsepower) for the first time in Japan in 1918. However, quite unexpectedly, the introduction of reduction gearing caused one failure after another from 1918 (see Table 6.5). Table 6.5 A synopsis of geared turbine failures of naval vessels from 1918 Date

Ship name

Ship type

Specification

Turbine type

3.10.1918 30.11.1918

Tanikaze Minekaze

Destroyer Destroyer

26.2.1919

Sawakaze

Destroyer

30.4.1919 21.11.1919 6.2.1920

Tenryu Tatsuta Nire

Cruiser Cruiser Destroyer

Blade fell out All blades fell out Blade sheared and dropped off Blade sheared Blade smashed Blade sheared

4.1920 28.9.1920

Kawakaze Shimakaze

Destroyer Destroyer

Blade sheared Blade breakage

20.12.1920 18.3.1922

Kuma Sumire

Cruiser Destroyer

Blade breakage Blade damaged

Brown-Curtis Brown-Curtis (HP) Parsons (LP) Brown-Curtis (HP) Parsons (LP) Brown-Curtis Brown-Curtis Brown-Curtis (HP) Parsons (LP) Brown-Curtis Brown-Curtis (HP) Parsons (LP) Gihon Zölly

Note: The same naval vessels and naval vessels of the same class suffered similar failures and breakdowns many times. These repeat failures and breakdowns are omitted here. The secondary failures and breakdowns caused by the initial ones are also omitted altogether. Gihon in the table is the multiple-flow turbine designed by the predecessor of the Technical Headquarters of the Navy. Source: Seisan Gijutsu Kyokai (ed.) ‘Kyu Kaigun Kantei Joki Tabin Kosho Kiroku’ (Record of the failures and breakdowns of warship turbines of the Imperial Japanese Navy) (Tokyo: Seisan Gijutsu Kyokai, for private distribution, 1954); Ryutaro Shibuya, ‘Kyu Kaigun Gijutsu Shiryo’ (Technical documents of the Imperial Japanese Navy) (Tokyo: Association for Production Technologies, for private distribution, 1970), vol. 1, ch. 4.


Geared turbines made possible an increase of one order of magnitude in revolutions per minute, from 100–200 to 1000–2000, which might have affected turbines designed for 100–200 rpm. What was far more important to the Navy, however, was the fact that almost all the geared turbines causing failures and breakdowns were Western types as shown in Table 6.5. And the licence contracts with the makers of the two leading Western type marine turbines, the Curtis and the Parsons types, were due to expire in June 1923 and in August 1928 respectively. Considering the failures and breakdowns in light of this situation, the Navy started to take official steps to establish its own type. In February 1921, a turbine conference was organized by the director of the Military Affairs Bureau (Gunmu Kyoku) of the Navy to drastically reconsider the design, production method, materials, and operation method of geared turbines. As a result, the configurations, materials, strength and installation of turbine blades were all improved. In addition, in August 1922, the Yokosuka arsenal of the Navy undertook an experiment on the critical speed of turbine rotors, in accordance with the Military Secret No. 1148 directive, in order to determine the normal tolerance of turbine rotors in terms of revolutions per minute.33 For the purpose of replacing Western type turbines, the new Kanpon type turbine was developed based on these results, and achieved standardization in design, materials and production methods. In fact, the chief of Section 5 of the Technical Headquarters of the Navy, Masato Sugi (later director) ordered Ryutaro Shibuya, who became the leader of the turbine group of the section in December 1922, to examine the patent rights of existing foreign marine turbines closely beforehand. The purpose was ‘to create a new marine turbine that is independent of foreign patents both in design and in production method’.34 The Kanpon type turbine was also expected to achieve cost reduction and flexible usage for a wide range of purposes, which would be made possible by standardization. Thus the Kanpon type turbine was developed and established as the standard turbine for Japanese naval vessels due to the failures and breakdowns of Western geared turbines that had been experienced by the Navy. As mentioned in Chapter 3, the first Kanpon type turbine was installed in the firstclass destroyers built in 1924.35 All Japanese naval vessels continued to adopt this Kanpon type turbine until 1945. Everyone regarded it as a landmark showing the beginning of self-reliant technologies. This is because, as the Japan Shipbuilding Society wrote in its official history of naval architecture and marine engineering in 1977, ‘there had been no serious trouble with the turbine blades for more than ten years, since the early 1920s, and the Navy continued to have a strong confidence in its reliability’.36 What follows is an important counterargument against the usual account of a unidirectional technological development, by calling attention to the missing turbine failure, a pitfall inherent in this development trajectory. A detailed study of the little-known serious failure of the Kanpon type


turbine that occurred immediately before the Second World War will show how important and meaningful this pitfall is for the trajectory of prewar Japan’s technological development and its industrialization. This is particularly because, as will be clarified below, the pitfall was profoundly related to the transformation outlined above of the military-industrial-university complex caused by an unbalanced military secrecy.

Secrecy about the failure Today, there are only five published books containing references to the failure. In 1952, seven years after the war ended, the first reference appeared in A Conspectus of Warship Construction Technology (Zosen Gijutsu no Zenbo) compiled under the leadership of Michizo Sendo who was an engineering Rear Admiral of the Navy. This reference states: The story began with the discovery of a crack in a main turbine blade of the destroyer Asashio in December 1937 … It was clear from investigation that such a crack could occur in the turbines of other naval vessels working then, including battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. It was anticipated that without a prompt remedy these naval vessels would eventually experience a crack and be paralysed … A special examination committee was established in 1938 … The results of these studies and experiments directed by the committee were integrated to solve the problem with the turbine crack … The propulsion capability of Japanese naval vessels was thus secured.37 Four years later, the second reference appeared in On the Imperial Japanese Navy (Dai Kaigun o Omou) by Masanori Ito, who was a Mainichi newspaper reporter and was also a graduate of the Naval Academy. This reference states: After the late 1920s, main turbines for naval vessels were completely freed of the blade problem caused by high-speed rotation. In other words, Japanese naval vessels became truly reliable. … However, the last day of 1937 saw the report of a serious failure – a turbine blade of the Asashio (then the latest large destroyer) came off … Turbines the same as those of the Asashio propelled … most other naval vessels and could have the same problem … The problem was discovered! … Once the problem was discovered, the remedy was simple … the length, width, and shape of the blade were changed.38 In 1969, the third reference appeared in The Military Equipment of the Navy (Kaigun Gunsenbi) compiled by the War History Unit of the National Defence College of the Defence Agency. This reference gives the most


authentic history of the failure among the five books. It states: At the end of December, 1937, cracks were discovered in the turbine blades of the destroyers Asashio, Oshio, and Michishio which were just launched and of the destroyers Yamagumo and Natsugumo which were being tested before launch. Naval vessels of the same type were modified provisionally and were allowed to run at limited power (up to about 25 knots) … It was decided to investigate all the main equipment of naval vessels. A special examination committee, established on 19 January 1938, surveyed, studied, and experimented … using all the money and labour available. Through these efforts, it concluded that most of the turbines used in the Imperial Japanese Navy’s naval vessels were defective … Nobody except a few engineers noticed that one crack discovered in December 1937 in a main turbine blade of the destroyers was a serious problem that could bring the whole of the Imperial Navy’s fleet to a standstill … If it had been overlooked, the turbines of the whole fleet would have broken down within a few years … Against the background of increasing international tension, this would have been an important if not critical factor … The Navy thus made every effort to pinpoint the exact cause and conducted studies and experiments in order to take remedial measures … It was proved that the cause would be likely to affect most turbines of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. Orders for remedial measures were issued and implemented … Fortunately, appropriate measures were taken and the main remedial measures were completed by autumn 1941.39 Eight years later, in 1977, the fourth reference appeared in The History of Shipbuilding in the Showa Period (Showa Zosen Shi), edited by the Japan Shipbuilding Society. The editor-in-chief was a former engineering officer of the Navy, and the editorial committee of the society also included several other engineering officers of the Navy. Of the five books, this reference provides the most detailed description of the technical aspects of the failure, which will be examined below based on newly discovered primary source materials. Its description of the main course of the incident, however, is almost the same as those of the other four references. It states: On 29 December 1937, an inspection of the newly built destroyer’s turbine found four of the moving blades of the second stage intermediatepressure turbine sheared off. This caused a fuss … A special examination committee was organized on 19 January 1938, which … estimated the cause, determined remedial measures, and dissolved on 2 December … followed by confirmation … Research by the Navy on the incident … obtained excellent results for the day.40 In 1981, the last reference appeared in The Navy (Kaigun), compiled by the Institute for Compilation of Historical Records relating to the Imperial


Japanese Navy. It states: Turbine blades of the Asashio cracked in December, 1937 – four months after its launching. This failure shocked the Technical Headquarters of the Navy because battleships and heavy cruisers had turbines of exactly the same design. It could affect the whole fleet. Large-scale run tests were conducted on all naval vessels … The turbines did not break … All the naval people concerned heaved a sigh of relief.41 As far as we are able to confirm at present, these are the only references to the turbine blade breakage incident in published sources. The Special Examination Committee appearing in these references is called Rinkicho in Japanese. This chapter will refer to the turbine failure, together with its investigation and attempted remediation, as the Rinkicho failure hereafter. The date of publication and the authors/editors of the references are all different, but all were written by parties connected with the Imperial Japanese Navy (see Table 6.6). And the accounts given in these references agree for the most part in their main points. A newly built destroyer encountered an unexpected turbine blade breakage failure. Since the failure involved an engine of the standard design, it caused great alarm. However, the cause was soon identified, so nothing serious happened. These references make up a kind of success story. And yet it is extremely difficult to look into further details of the failure because little evidence is provided to prove what is stated by these references. It appears that the failure was kept secret because it occurred during wartime mobilization. To confirm this, an examination of the government documents of around the time the failure occurred is in order. The government documents consulted here are the minutes of Imperial Diet sessions regarding the Navy. The minutes of the 57th Imperial Diet session (held in January 1930) to the 75th Table 6.6 References to the Rinkicho failure Year of reference

Author/editor

1952 1956

Former Engineering Rear Admiral of the Navy Mainichi newspaper reporter (graduate of the Naval Academy) War History Unit of the National Defence College of the Defence Agency Japan Shipbuilding Society (Editor-in-Chief and several members of the Editorial Committee were former technical officers of the Navy) Institute for Compilation of Historical Records relating to the Imperial Japanese Navy

1969 1977

1981


Imperial Diet session (held in March 1940) contain no less than 7000 pages about Navy-related discussions. These discussions include ten naval vessel incidents summarized in the Appendix (pp. 176–7). It is noteworthy in these discussions that the Fourth Squadron incident of September 1935, one of the most serious incidents in the history of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was made public and discussed in the Imperial Diet sessions within a year (on 18 May 1936).42 The Rinkicho failure occurred on 29 December 1937, and has been handed down informally within the Navy and counted as a major incident on a par with the Fourth Squadron incident.43 However, more than two years after the Rinkicho failure there is no sign in the documents that it was made public and discussed in Imperial Diet sessions. As will be discussed in detail, reports on the failure had already been submitted during the period from March to November 1938 (the final report was submitted on 2 November). Nevertheless the Imperial Diet heard nothing about the failure or any detail of measures taken to deal with it. The Rinkicho failure was so serious that it would have influenced the decision on whether to go to war with the US and Britain. The Fourth Squadron incident was also serious enough to influence the decision, in that the incident dramatically disclosed the inadequate strength and stability of the hull of the standard naval vessels designed after the London naval disarmament treaty concluded in 1930.44 But it was made public and discussed in Imperial Diet sessions. In this respect, there is a marked difference between the two incidents. Regarding the Fourth Squadron incident, the Director of the Naval Accounting Bureau (Kaigun Keiri Kyoku), Harukazu Murakami, was forced to give the following answer to a question by Kanjiro Fukuda (Democratic Party) at the 69th Imperial Diet session held on 18 May 1936: When the Fourth Squadron were conducting manoeuvres in the sea area to the east of Japan, they encountered a furious typhoon. They were attacked by very rare high waves. Two destroyers were tossed about tremendously. As a result, their bows were damaged. The damage to the engines and armament was considerable – two million yen for the ship and 800 thousand yen for its armament, a total of 2.8 million yen.45 Although his answer gave no information regarding the damage to personnel (all members of the crew confined within the bows of the destroyers died), it accurately stated the facts of the incident and the material damage incurred. The simple word ‘damage’ was used, but the sum of 2.8 million yen clearly indicated how serious the incident was. Even the damage due to the collision between cruisers about five years earlier was only 180 thousand yen. The above answer from a naval official clearly attested that the Fourth Squadron incident was so extraordinarily serious as to oblige him to disclose this fact


to the public.46 It should be noted here that remedial measures for the turbine problem on all Japanese naval vessels disclosed by the Rinkicho failure were expected to cost 40 million yen.47 Nevertheless, no detailed open report was presented at the Imperial Diet. This fact strongly indicates that the Rinkicho failure was a top military secret which was not allowed to go beyond the Imperial Japanese Navy. What then were the facts? This question will be answered based on documents owned by Ryutaro Shibuya, who was an Engineering Vice-Admiral of the Navy and was responsible for turbine design of Japanese naval vessels at the time (these documents will be called the Shibuya archives hereafter).

The Rinkicho failure and the outbreak of war with the US and Britain: how did Japan deal with the problem? When Japan was defeated in 1945, most military organizations were ordered to burn documents they had kept. Many documents of the Imperial Japanese Navy were burnt before the General Headquarters of the US Occupation Forces ordered the Japanese government to submit documents regarding the war. Ex-managers and ex-directors of the Imperial Japanese Navy then had meetings and decided to undertake a research project to collect, examine and preserve technical documents as far as possible. The project was funded with 500,000 yen from the budget reserved for extra military expenditure. As a result of this project several thousand documents came into the hands of Ryutaro Shibuya, which resulted in the establishment of the Shibuya archives.48 The archives are enormous, consisting of more than 4000 materials on subjects ranging from steam turbine blades to the casualties of the atomic bomb (see Appendix). Even though we choose only the materials directly concerning the Rinkicho failure, it is impossible to present here a full analysis of all the details gleaned from these voluminous materials. Instead, a brief chronological table in the Appendix will serve to show the main events. As mentioned earlier, the Special Examination Committee was established in January 1938. The purpose of the committee was as follows: Problems were found with the turbines of Asashio-class destroyers … It is necessary to work out remedial measures and study the design of the machinery involved and other related matters, so that such studies will help improvements. These research activities must be performed freely without any restrictions imposed by experience and practice in the past. The Special Examination Committee has been established to fulfil this purpose.49


Its organization was as follows:50 (a) General members who did not attend subcommittee meetings: Chair: Isoroku Yamamoto, Vice-Admiral, Administrative Vice-Minister of the Navy Members: Rear Admiral Inoue, Director of the Bureau of Naval Affairs, the Ministry of the Navy and five other members (b) Subcommittees First subcommittee for dealing with engine design and planning: Members: Leader; Shipbuilding Vice-Admiral Fukuma, Director of the Fifth Department (including the turbine group), the Technical Headquarters of the Navy, and nine other members Second subcommittee for dealing with the maximum engine power and load/volume suitable for it Members: Leader; Rear Admiral Mikawa, Director of the Second Department, the Naval General Staff, and eleven other members Third subcommittee for dealing with prior studies/experiments/systems and operations Members: Leader; Rear Admiral Iwamura, Director of the General Affairs Department, the Technical Headquarters of the Navy, and ten other members. Ignoring duplication of members belonging to different subcommittees, Table 6.7 arranges the members by section. The failure, as mentioned above, concerned the breakage of turbine blades. Tracing back in the history of the development of the marine turbine in Japan since 1918 when the Navy began to adopt geared reduction turbines

Table 6.7 Members of the Special Examination Committee, by section Section

Number

Administrative Vice Minister of the Navy Bureau of Naval Affairs Naval General Staff Technical Headquarters of the Navy Naval Staff College Naval Engineering School

1 8 5 15 3 1

Total

33

Source: Based on the Rinkicho Report, Top Secret no. 35, issued on 2 November 1938, appended sheets.


for its vessels, we find that various failures occurred with main turbines for naval vessels. When we classify these failures during the period from 1918 to October 1944 by location, failures involving turbine blades account for 60 per cent of the total (see Table 6.8).51 The Imperial Japanese Navy had thus had many problems with turbine blades for many years and accumulated experience in handling them. Accordingly it is unsurprising that the Special Examination Committee took the failure as merely a routine problem from the outset based upon such long and rich experience. In fact, the Special Examination Committee drew a conclusion made up of two points, both of which were in line with such accumulated experience. First, the failure was caused by insufficient blade strength. Second, turbine rotor vibration made the insufficient strength emerge as a problem.52 On the basis of this conclusion, a plan was worked out to improve the design of the blades and rotors of the Kanpon type turbines for all naval vessels. It was decided to change the form of the blades so as to make their stress concentration lower to enhance their strength.53 The improvement of 61 naval vessels’ turbines was indicated as the first step, in accordance with the voluminous previous reports of the 66 committee meetings held over a period of ten months.54 At the same time, Vice-Admiral Ryutaro Shibuya, who was then responsible for turbine design, was punished for the unsuitable design. Byelaws of the Imperial Japanese Navy strictly forbade him to offer testimony against his punishment at the Special Examination Committee.55 However, the blade breakage in this failure was significantly different from that in the past. In impulse turbines, for instance, blades in most cases were

Table 6.8 Turbine failures on naval vessels classified by location, 1918–44 Location

Incidents

Percentage

Cumulative

Impulse blade and grommet Reaction blade and binding strip Reduction gear and claw coupling Bearing and thrust bearing Casing Casing partition and nozzle Blade wheel and spindle Steam packing Others

368 111 80 66 46 34 22 20 39

46.8 14.1 10.2 8.4 5.9 4.3 2.8 2.5 5.0

46.8 60.9 71.1 79.5 85.4 89.7 92.5 95.0

Total

786

100.0

100.0

Note: Reaction blade means the blade of a traditional Parsons turbine (cf. ibid., p. 4.) Source: Based on Seisan Gijutsu Kyokai (ed.) ‘Kyu Kaigun Kantei Joki Tabin Kosho Kiroku’ (Record of the failures of naval turbines of the Imperial Japanese Navy) (Tokyo: Seisan Gijutsu Kyokai, for private distribution, 1954), pp. 1–2.


broken at the base where they were fixed to the turbine rotor. In contrast, one of the salient features of the Rinkicho failure was that the tip of the blade was broken off. The broken off part amounted to one-third of the total length of the blade. The breakage is described as follows in the record written at the time: ‘Moving blades and the rivets on the tip of the 2nd and 3rd stages of the intermediate-pressure turbines were broken … The break in every moving blade was located at 40 to 70 mm from the tip.’56 Exactly the same type of breakage also occurred in the five Asashio-class destroyers with the same turbine during the period from 31 December 1937 to 2 January 1938.57 These facts indicated that these failures were significantly different from any previous routine problem. Yoshio Kubota, an Engineering Captain of the Navy who happened to be transferred to the Military Affairs Bureau of the Navy in November 1938 when the Special Examination Committee reported its conclusion, eventually noticed this point. It was not really permissible for a newcomer to the Military Affairs Bureau of the Navy to utter an objection against the latest conclusion of the special committee. In addition, six months before his transfer to the bureau, the Japanese government enacted the Wartime Mobilization Law as described earlier on 1 April 1938 for the purpose of ‘controlling and organizing human and material resources most efficiently … in case of war’ (Clause 1). Naval vessels came first in the specification of the law as ‘resources for wholesale mobilization’ (Clause 2). A failure of the main standard engine employed by the Navy was a very delicate matter for anyone to touch against this background of wartime mobilization.58 Nevertheless, despite the circumstances, Kubota strongly recommended that confirmation tests should be conducted again for naval vessels of the same type. He argued that if turbine rotor vibration was the true cause, then the failure would recur when the engine was run continuously at the critical speed causing rotor vibration (nearly 6/10 to 10/10 of the full speed).59 The Navy finally decided to initiate continuous-run tests equivalent to ten-year runs on 1 April 1939. No failure occurred, and the Navy cancelled the overall remedial measures for all naval vessels, which were expected to require huge amounts of extra money and time.60 An order was issued promptly to postpone the modification to the turbine blades and rotors of the Kanpon turbines for all naval vessels. At the same time, however, there was obviously an urgent need to consider the possibility of another cause, and study to identify the cause was restarted. The Maizuru Naval Dockyard conducted preliminary on-land tests and more thorough ones followed at the Hiro Naval Dockyard to confirm the conditions that would make the failure recur. However, the test was extremely difficult to carry out. There were two reasons for this. First, the complete test required the Hiro Naval Dockyard to construct from scratch a full-scale experimental apparatus for a load test of vibration, which was only completed in December 1941, the month the war with the US and Britain broke out. Second, the test turned


out to be so large-scale, eventually extending to more than 35 main items, that it took far more time than expected. As a result, the schedule for identifying the cause was originally expected to be completed in November 1940, but was extended to mid-1943 by the Minister of the Navy’s Secretariat Secret Instruction No. 5389.61 Thus it is probable that all Japan’s naval vessels had turbines which were imperfect for some inexplicable reason when the country went to war with the US and Britain in 1941. What then was the true cause? The true cause was binodal vibration. Previous efforts to avoid turbine vibration had been confined to one-node vibration at full speed since multiple-node vibration below full speed had been assumed to be hardly serious and unworthy of attention.62 The final discovery of the true cause of the Rinkicho failure drastically changed the situation. It revealed that marine turbines are susceptible to a serious vibration problem below full speed. It was in April 1943 that this true cause was eventually identified by the final report of the Special Examination Committee – almost one and half years after the start of the war. According to this report, ‘Binodal vibration occurs when the product of the number of nozzles and the revolution of blades … equals the frequency of the blades at binodal vibration.’63 This means that a forced vibration caused by steam pulsation and a specific binodal frequency of blades resonate with each other, as a result of which binodal vibration occurs. Only three months before the submission of the report, a theoretical study made at the Hiro Naval Dockyard supported the conclusion that the true cause was binodal vibration. It proved that even if uniform vertical and horizontal sections were assumed for the purpose of simplification, binodal vibration could produce the maximum stress at places less than three-fifths of the distance from the tip of a blade, which matched the place of the actual breakages.64 The results of theoretical calculation, on-land confirmation testing, and the characteristics of the actual failure matched. The Navy could not confine knowledge of the incident to insiders right up to the final report since it asked an authority in the strength of materials, Kansei Ono, a professor of the Imperial University of Tokyo to give technical advice. The complete mechanism giving rise to binodal vibration itself was still left for further studies. Even so, every result from the Special Examination Committee which was finally wound up in 1943, pointed to the same single cause: binodal vibration.65 When we look at other circumstantial evidence such as the fact that the blade breakage was limited to a relatively small number of turbines of particular newly built destroyers, it was still plausible that the strength of particular blades had something to do with the failure. The Directive on Engine Design of the Navy No. 1100 was therefore revised to ensure an enormous increase in the thickness of turbine blades just after the submission of the final report of the committee on 15 May 1943. For the intermediate-pressure stages of the Kanpon type turbines for the Asashio-class destroyers involved


in the failure, for example, the revised directive ordered an increase of thickness from 0.4 to 1.5 mm.66 Considering this circumstantial evidence together, there were possibly two closely associated aspects in the failure to identify the cause of the blade breakage and remedy it. One is a universal aspect leading to the detection of binodal vibration. The other is a more context-specific aspect possibly due to the testing and quality control of the strength of the particular broken blades. Whatever weight may be given to each aspect in the description and analysis of the failure, however, as the date of the final report and the revision of the directive indicate, it was only after April 1943 that both aspects were finally noticed. By then about a year and a half had already passed since the outbreak of war with the US and Britain in 1941. Strictly in terms of the technology involved in the failure, therefore, and without hindsight, all the evidence suggests that the Japanese government went to war in haste in 1941 notwithstanding the fact that it had serious problems with the main engines of its naval vessels. And the fact was kept secret by the military sector from other sectors involved in the military-industrialuniversity complex, not to speak of the general public. The rarity of breakdowns of naval vessels due to turbine troubles during the war is a completely different matter, one of hindsight. Thus, the Rinkicho failure strongly suggests that practical results alone (for example, rarity of breakdowns of naval vessels due to turbine troubles) during wartime, possibly in peacetime as well, do not prove the essential soundness of the development trajectory of technology, and that of national decision-making along the trajectory.

Conclusion: beyond success or failure The implication of this final chapter is closely related to the reason why we can call the Rinkicho failure ‘little known’. The reason is that it was much more serious and complex than expected from previous experience and therefore kept secret from outsiders. This fact requires us to reconsider the development trajectory of technology beyond the simplistic dichotomy of success or failure throughout peacetime and wartime. According to a standard view of the history of technology in general and the ship revolution in Japan in particular, it proceeded to a self-reliant phase with the establishment of the Kanpon type turbine in the 1920s, after improvements through various problems and incidents of failure. In short, a successful self-reliant phase followed after various failures in the improvement phase. And it has been assumed up to now that this trajectory enabled Japan to go to war in 1941. According to the description and analysis of the Rinkicho failure developed in this final chapter, however, the trajectory becomes much more complex than the conventional ‘success story’ account suggests since there was a serious but little-known missing development, a mystifying failure during the self-reliant phase, which the Navy was unable to completely solve by the time war broke out.


There is a general reason why the failure was mystifying at the time. The reason is that the recognition of binodal turbine blade vibration as the true cause was beyond the usual turbine designer of the day. This type of problem is generally supposed to have been unrecognized until the postwar period. Still in the postwar period, avoiding turbine blade vibration caused by various resonances provided one of the most critical topics for research on turbine design.67 In fact, an article on the QE2’s turbine reported a similar failure occurred as late as 1969.68 The Imperial Japanese Navy certainly managed, after the serious technological and organizational errors of the Rinkicho failure, eventually to detect the universal true cause during the war. But a complete solution seems not to have been obtained even after the detection of the universal true cause, since the same type of turbine blade breakage still occurred in the same class of destroyer more than a year after the final report of the Special Examination Committee had been submitted. A destroyer of the same class was found to have had the same type of turbine blade breakage, around ‘one-third of the blade from the tip’, on 21 July 1944, an incident even less known than the Rinkicho failure.69 In short, the problem was detected in the prewar period, but its final solution was left until after the war. Postwar industrial development based on the ship revolution, and the development of the steam turbine for commercial purposes, among other things, started from a careful re-examination of the binodal vibration problem left unsolved by the prewar/wartime military sector. In fact, in 1953 Kawasaki Heavy Industry Limited, one of the later forms of the prewar/wartime Kawasaki Shipbuilding Company, called for reconsideration of a policy, proposed by the Japanese government, that called for introducing foreign technologies in the production of the turbine. The reason was that it had kept the abundant know-how of turbine production acquired during the prewar period, based on which it considered independent technology development should be aimed at for the future. The government officials gave their assent. That was three years before Japan took the lead in shipbuilding output in the world market. To help develop an independent technology for the future, the company invited three technical advisers within a month: Yoshitada Amari (ex-Engineering Rear Admiral of the Navy), and Kanji Toshima and Shoichi Yasugi (both ex-Engineering Captains of the Navy). They were all in the Technical Headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Navy at some stage of their prewar careers and were also concerned with the Rinkicho failure. And every detail of prewar turbine failures including the Rinkicho failure was inputted into an IBM computer and reanalysed, from which the company obtained an exact normal tolerance for the strength of turbine blades and a design to avoid binodal vibration.70 This is not intended as another success story of technology in the postwar period. This little known incident of broken turbine blades, as an important


instance of a failure in the self-reliant prewar Japanese technology, gives a significant confirmation of the disintegration of the network of the relationships linking the military and industrial sectors outlined above, a key element of the transformation of the military-industrial-university complex that was spontaneously formed during the ship revolution. That is to say, the incident enables us to look at the transformation of the complex during the wartime mobilization of science and technology in a fresh light as secret military problem-finding and investigation, and pioneering but partial diagnosis without a well-informed industrial problem-solving process. This was the end state of the complex in the prewar and wartime period in which a pitfall was present within the successful industrialization, an end state from which the postwar industrial reconstruction in Japan started. This will provide an important guideline for characterizing and understanding the complex in other countries beyond the simplistic dichotomy of success or failure. This is because the kind of fresh account exemplified here, which goes beyond a dichotomous narration, has tended to be unduly neglected up to now, not only in the sociological studies of industrialization but in the sociology and social history of science and technology. Against the background of this fresh account, what emerges is that owing to the highly end-use-oriented bias of industrialization, science and technology tended to be transferred to Japan as a seamless set, with little distinction made between them. This implies that science and technology were both transferred as something from which only elements useful for industrialization were to be selected. In other words, science in Japan tended to have a highly pragmatic nature, which created an idea of ready-made science to be directly mobilized as an instrument for industrialization. In fact, ‘Until the 1880s, the Japanese language did not distinguish clearly between ‘science’ and ‘technology’.’71 This tendency meant that technological development was not carried out systematically based on basic scientific research. Most discoveries and inventions made at the time were closely related to practical technologies, particularly military ones such as Shimose gunpowder and the Ishuin fuse, which helped Japan to win the Russo-Japanese War, and the Kanpon type turbine described and analysed above. Discoveries and inventions in basic sciences and technologies were, if made occasionally, unlikely to receive due recognition. The lack of balance in development trajectories between basic, applied and developmental sciences and technologies in turn retarded the growth of the aircraft, precision machinery and other industries requiring basic research. This suggests a possibility that Japan was able to achieve rapid social change (industrialization and the professionalization of science and technology) at the expense of balanced development of science and technology in society. This uneven progress of industrialization was noted by some Japanese observers well before the Second World War. For instance, as early as the end of the Meiji period an anonymous article entitled ‘A doubter’s view of


Japanese industry’ (Gimon to hikan no kogyo kai) stated: We are boasting of our country as the Britain of the East. However, it cannot without vanity be called a first-class country because it lacks the real basis of wealth, not to speak of natural resources … We have to be very careful of the fact and as a warning, let me quote a Western proverb, ‘Esse quam videri’ (To be rather than to seem). (XYZ, Doctor of Science, 1911)72 The description and analysis of the Rinkicho failure in this concluding chapter suggests that if there are points that justify such a warning in social phenomena involving technology gatekeepers, they are the following three points. First, the secret military problem-finding and investigation, and pioneering but partial diagnosis without a well-informed industrial problem-solving system generated from the technology gatekeepers had the intrinsic weakness that it tended to lead to failures such as the Rinkicho failure. Second, such failures were produced by a success in the ship revolution made possible by the military-industrial-university complex which was spontaneously generated from technology gatekeepers. Third, this unexpectedly complex mixture of success and failure came from the transformation of the complex during the wartime mobilization of science and technology, which made the complex seemingly robust in structure but actually functionally disjointed. Therefore, if a complex of similar nature continues to exist and operate in industrial society, it may well be that even in the quite different and largerscale social context of the world since 1945 global industrialization can lead to a similar dangerous weakness which can persist through peacetime and wartime. Whether this is the case is the question the conclusion of this book poses for further studies.

Appendix

Discussions in the Imperial Diet regarding naval vessel incidents, January 1930–March 1940 Date

Description

13 February 1931

Questions about the cause of the collision between the cruiser Abukuma and Kitakami. (Shinya Uchida’s questions were answered by the Minister of the Navy, Anbo, at the Lower House Budget Committee, the 59th Imperial Diet session.) Questions about the measures taken before and after the collision between the cruiser Abukuma and Kitakami during the large-scale manoeuvres in 1930 and the responsibility of the authorities. (Tanetada Tachibana’s questions were answered by the Minister of the Navy, Anbo, at the House of Lords Budget Committee, the 59th Imperial Diet session.) Questions about the Minister of the Navy’s view on the expenditure (12,000 yen) on repairs to the destroyer Usugumo and on the fact that the destroyer struck a wellknown sunken rock. (Shinya Uchida’s questions were answered by the Minister of the Navy, Osumi, at the Lower House Budget Committee, the 64th Imperial Diet session.) Request for information about the results of research on a scraping incident involving four destroyers, apparently on training duty in Ariake Bay, reported in newspapers. (Yoshitaro Takahashi’s questions were answered by the Minister of the Navy, Osumi, at the Lower House Budget Committee, the 67th Imperial Diet session.) Request for information about the seriousness of the collision between submarines I-53 and I-63 and the amount of money drawn from the reserve for that. (Kanjiro Fukuda’s questions were answered by the Accounting Bureau Director, Murakami, at the Lower House plenary session, the 69th Imperial Diet session.) Request for detailed information about the degree of damage to a destroyer due to violent waves in September 1935. (Kanjiro Fukuda’s questions were answered by the Accounting Bureau Director, Murakami, at the Lower House plenary session, the 69th Imperial Diet session.) Brief explanation of the incident encountered by the submarine I-63. (The Minister of the Navy, Yonai, explained at the House of Lords plenary session, the 74th Imperial Diet session.)

2 March 1931

17 March 1933

2 March 1935

18 May 1936

18 May 1936

6 February 1939

Continued 176

Appendix 177

Date

Description

7 February 1939

Brief explanation of the incident encountered by the submarine I-63. (The Minister of the Navy, Yonai, explained at the Lower House plenary session, the 74th Imperial Diet session.) Request for a brief explanation of the sinking of a submarine due to collision during manoeuvres. (Takeo Kikuchi’s questions were answered by the Director of the Bureau of Military Affairs, Inoue, at the House of Lords Budget Committee, the 74th Imperial Diet session.) Brief report on the completion of the salvage of the sunk submarine I-63. (The Minister of the Navy, Yoshida, reported at the House of Lords plenary session, the 75th Imperial Diet session.)

25 February 1939

1 February 1940

Source: Based on Kaigun Daijin Kanbo Rinji Chosa Ka (Temporary Research Section, the Minister of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Secretariat (ed.) Teikoku Gikai Kaigun Kankei Giji Sokki Roku (Minutes of Imperial Diet Sessions Regarding Navy-related Subjects), Bekkan 1, 2 (reprint, Tokyo: Hara Shobo, 1984).

Materials of the Shibuya archives Item Marine engineering Steam turbines (blades, rotors) Steam turbines (domestic) Steam turbines (foreign) Reduction gearing Condensers Propellers/propulsion shafting Boilers (general) Boilers (velox boiler) Boilers (feed water) Boilers (automatic control) Auxiliaries (general) Auxiliaries (steering gear and others) Auxiliaries (distilling plant) Piping Internal combustion engines Gas turbines Rinkicho failures Materials Fuel/lubricant Submarines Compendium & design of marine engines Trial reports Vibration/noise

Number of materials

85 237 133 108 48 145 228 19 56 22 151 50 34 152 392 91 45 206 47 53 149 80 34 Continued

178 Appendix

Item

Number of materials

Bearing General reports/bye-laws Miscellaneous Naval architecture Technical reports Design Hull structure Materials/hull corrosion Welding Tanker/bulk carriers Fishing vessels Miscellaneous Nuclear power Weapons/weapons systems Guns Gunpowder Materials Torpedoes Ship electrical systems Navigation systems Warplanes Miscellaneous, including manuscripts, memoranda, photographs, and others Total

32 62 104 49 47 125 79 58 57 21 80 170 7 17 72 7 22 5 55 585 4,219

Source: Shibuya Bunko Chosa Iinkai, Shibuya Bunko Mokuroku (Catalogue of the Shibuya archives), March 1995.

A brief chronological table showing the main events of the Rinkicho failure 29 December 1937 19 January 1938

3 February 1938

August 1938

2 November 1938

The failure occurred. The Minister of the Navy’s Secretariat Military Secret No. 266 was issued, stating that it had been decided to establish the Special Examination Committee. The Minister of the Navy’s Secretariat Secret Instruction No. 566 was issued, stating that it had been decided to examine the vibration of the main turbine blades and rotors installed in the naval vessels at the Hiro Naval Dockyard. The Technical Headquarters Secret No. 15332 was issued specifying the methods of static and dynamic vibration tests on turbine blades and rotors. Report from the Committee (Top Secret No. 35) summarizing the 53 subcommittee meetings and 13 general meetings held up to then. Continued

Appendix 179

1 April 1939

12 February 1940

6 May 1940

20 June 1941

8 December 1941

The Minister of the Navy’s Secretariat Secret Instruction No. 1973 was issued, stating that it had been decided to select a representative naval vessel from the existing naval vessels, excluding the Asashio-class destroyers for which remedy had already been implemented, and to conduct long-run load tests according to the remedy implementation schedule suggested by the Special Examination Committee’s report. The Minister of the Navy’s Secretariat Secret Instruction No. 1122 was issued, stating that it had been decided to begin turbine rotor load tests at the Engine Experiment Department, the Maizuru Naval Dockyard in April 1940. The Minister of the Navy’s Secretariat Secret Instruction No. 3185 was issued to postpone the modification to the main turbines of the existing naval vessels. The Minister of the Navy’s Secretariat Secret Instruction No. 5389 was issued, stating that it had been decided to postpone the completion of turbine rotor load tests to March 1943, postpone the modification to the main turbines of the naval vessels, and make the final decision by consulting the results of on land tests by the end of June 1943. War with the US and Britain declared.

Source: Based on Shun Murata, ‘Asashio Gata Shu Tabin no Jiko’ (An accident of the main turbines of the Asashio-class), manuscript, n.d.

Notes 1

Introduction: Problems and Approaches

1. Social change here means the structural change of patterns linking men, artefacts, and nature, extending over a long period rather than the temporary shift of social phenomena. 2. See Eitaro Noro, Nihon Shihonshugi Hattatsu Shi (A history of the development of capitalism in Japan) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1954), p. 85; Robert U. Ayres, The Next Industrial Revolution: Reviving Industry through Innovation (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1984), pp. 10–125, et al. 3. See G. Meyer-Thurow, ‘The industrialization of innovation: a case study from the German chemical industry’, Isis, vol. 73, no. 268 (1982), pp. 363–81; George Wise, ‘Ionist in industry: Physical chemistry at G. E., 1900–1915’, Isis, vol. 74, no. 271 (1983), pp. 7–21; L. S. Reich, ‘Industrial research and the pursuit of corporate security: the early years of Bell labs’, Business History Review, vol. 54, no. 4 (1980), pp. 504–29, and others. For cases in the 1920s, see Yasu Furukawa, Inventing Polymer Science: Staudinger, Carothers and the Emergence of Macromolecular Chemistry (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 1998), and others. 4. In either case, according to Anthony Giddens, a stereotypical generalization such as: ‘it is the technological … level of development of a society that “in the last resort” determines the processes of change which affect it’ seems to have been assumed (Anthony Giddens, The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies, London, Hutchinson, 1973, p. 265). Based on a survey of literature on the sociology of industrial and post-industrial societies, Richard Badham put the assumption in a different manner: ‘The great transformation had occurred and while there could be no turning back it was also impossible to bring about a radical social reconstruction within or beyond the new social order. The development of science, frequently associated with this transformation … revealed the inevitability of this transition and the necessary constraints that it imposed on human action.’ (R. Badham, ‘The sociology of industrial and post-industrial societies’, Current Sociology, vol. 32, no. 1 (1984), p. 22.) For a classical work giving the foundation of the continuous industrialization models based on the assumption, see C. Kerr, J. T. Dunlop, F. H. Harbison and C. A. Myers, Industrialism and Industrial Man (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960). For another classical proponent of the discontinuous development stage model based on a similar assumption, see Karl Marx, Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, bd. 1, buch 1 (Hamburg: Otto Meissner, 1867). 5. Farbenfabriken Bayer AG, Fünfzig Jahre Bayer Arzneimittel, 1888–1938 (Leverkusen, 1938); John D. Scott, Siemens Brothers, 1858–1958: An Essay in the History of Industry (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1958); G. Wise, ‘A new role for professional scientists in industry: industrial research at General Electric, 1900–1916’, Technology and Culture, vol. 21, no. 3 (1980), pp. 408–29; idem., ‘Ionist in industry’; Francis E. Leupp, George Westinghouse: His Life and Achievements (Boston: Little Brown, 1918), and others. 6. David S. Landes, Prometheus Unbound (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1969), p. 235. Additions in brackets are mine. 180

Notes 181 7. In general, whether we can expect rich sociological implications is completely distinct from whether a case taken up is on the leading edge of advance of industrial societies. For a comprehensive guide for understanding and developing this point, see Robert Fox (ed.) Technological Change: Methods and Themes in the History of Technology (Amsterdam: Harwood, 1996). 8. One of the first to attack the amateur tradition was Charles Babbage, a mathematician known as an inventor of the computer for his work on difference and analytical engines. As early as 1830, he severely criticized the Royal Society, pointing out that more than 40 per cent of the Fellows of the society were amateur gentlemen who had never contributed to the Philosophical Transactions, the society’s journal. See C. Babbage, Reflections on the Decline of Science in England (London: B. Fellowes, 1830), pp. 226–8, appendix no. 3. Just ten years later, William Whewell, a professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge, introduced the new word ‘scientist’ instead of the traditional word ‘natural philosopher’. See W. Whewell, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (London: John W. Parker, 1840), vol. I, p. cxiii. In 1851, the Sixth Census of England and Wales introduced a new category, ‘scientific person’, a reflection of changing occupational titles. See Census of England and Wales for the Year 1861, vol. III (London, 1863), p. 32. As for professional engineers, the socalled ‘technical education movement’ became widespread in the second half of the nineteenth century, which led to the Royal Commission on the subject. See Second Report of the Royal Commissioners on Technical Instruction (London, 1884). 9. Although there are differences between England and Scotland in terms of engineering education and its relationship to shipbuilding, this book does not go into them. 10. T. Goode, ‘Nihon ni okeru zosengyo’ (The shipbuilding industry in Japan), Kogyo, no. 14 (1909), pp. 28–32 (abridged translation into Japanese). According to an industrial census-based index showing the rate of increase in industrial output in terms of currency value from 1909 to 1914, the machinery industry came first (257.8) and the metal industry next (222.4). Within the machinery industry, ‘the largest was shipbuilding’. See Tsusho Sangyo Daijin Kanbo Chosa Tokeibu, Kogyo Tokei 50 Nen Shi (A history of the Census of Manufactures 1909–1958) (Tokyo: Ryukei Shosha, 1961), Kaisetsu Hen, pp. 36–7. 11. Edgar C. Smith, A Short History of Naval and Marine Engineering (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1938), p. 360. 12. Second Report of the Royal Commissioners on Technical Instruction (London, 1884), vol. I, p. 507. 13. Final Report on the First Census of Production of the United Kingdom, 1907, pt 2 (London, 1913), pp. 125–38, pp. 542–93, pp. 845–63. 14. As for the relationship between Japanese and Western shipbuilding, see H. Adachi, Iyo no Fune: Yoshiki Sen Donyu to Sakoku Taisei (The introduction of Western ships and the closed-door policy of Japan) (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1995). 15. ‘Kogaku soshi kokan no shushi’ (Editorial for Kogaku Soshi), Kogaku Soshi, vol. 1 (1881), p. 1. 16. Rinzaburo Shida, ‘Kogyo no shinpo wa riron to jikken tono shinwa ni yoru’ (The marriage of theory and experiment produces industrial progress), Kogaku Soshi, vol. 6, pt 67 (1887), pp. 425–50. 17. Ibid., p. 441. 18. Ibid., p. 449. 19. No Shomu Sho (ed.) ‘Kogyo Iken’ (Opinions on industrialization), vol. 11 (1884), in Hyoe Ouchi and Takao Tsuchiya (eds), Meiji Zenki Zaisei Keizai Shiryo Shusei (Compilation of documents on finance and economy in the early Meiji period), vol. 18, pt 2 (Tokyo: Meiji Bunken Shiryo Kanko Kai, 1964), p. 436.

182 Notes 20. As for how the plan was eventually implemented only partially and unsatisfactorily, see Chikayoshi Kamatani, Gijutsu Taikoku Hyakunen no Kei: Nippon no Kindaika to Kokuritsu Kenkyu Kikan (The road to techno-nationalism: Japanese modernization and national research institutes from the Meiji era) (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1988). 21. The government also utilized students dispatched overseas by the Ministry of Education, which forms a separate topic, since their purposes were broadly prescribed as ‘studying art and advanced learning’, and they therefore had less direct relation to the creation of the institutional framework of industrialization in the ongoing scientific and technological revolution. See Annual Report of the Ministry of Education, no. 20 (1892), no. 34 (1906), and others (the quotation is ibid., no. 34 (1906), p. 17). 22. Calculated from Nippon Teikoku Tokei Nenkan (Statistical yearbook of the Japanese empire) (Tokyo: Tokyo Tokei Kyokai), no. 2 (1883), no. 18 (1899). When we extend the period to 1869–1900 and include the employees coming from the British empire, the figure amounts to 1034 in total. See H. J. Jones, ‘The Griffith thesis and Meiji policy toward hired foreigners’, in Ardath W. Burks (ed.) The Modernizers: Overseas Students, Foreign Employees and Meiji Japan (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1985), pp. 219–53. For a study focusing on the personal histories of foreign employees, see Tadashi Shimada, Minoru Ishizuki, Noboru Umeso, Tadashi Kaneko, Yukihiko Motoyama, Masao Watanabe (eds) The Yatoi: Oyatoi Gaikokujin no Sogoteki Kenkyu (A study of foreign employees) (Tokyo: Shibunkaku Shuppan, 1987). 23. James A. Ewing, ‘Preliminary Report on Trials of the Steamer Turbinia’, 24 April 1897, Tyne and Wear Archives Service (Newcastle-upon-Tyne). 24. The major governmental departments involved in manufacturing industries, except for the Ministry of Communications (established in 1885), inherited almost all their functions from the departments of the old Cabinet (Dajokan) existing before 1885: the Ministry of Finance (Okura Sho, 1869), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimu Sho, 1869), Ministry of Engineering (Kobu Sho, 1870), Ministry of Education (Monbu Sho,1871), Ministry of Justice (Homu Sho, 1871), Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce (1871), and Ministry of Internal Affairs (Naimu Sho, 1873) had all started their work before 1885. 25. Okura Sho (ed.), ‘Kobu Sho Enkaku Hokoku’ (The origin of the Ministry of Engineering), 1887, in Ouchi and Tsuchiya, Meiji Zenki Zaisei Keizai Shiryo Shusei, pp. 5–6, p. 150. Soon after Morell’s arrival in Japan, he became ill. The Meiji government did everything for his recovery, spending an extraordinary amount on medical fees (5000 yen), but his illness proved fatal (ibid., p. 150). 26. Estimated from ibid., table 1 (pp. 469–70); Toshio Furushima, Shihonsei Seisan no Hatten to Jinushisei (The development of capitalism and the landlord system in Japan) (Tokyo: Ochanomizushobo, 1963), p. 267. The total expenditure of the ministry can be arrived at by summing overheads (Eigyo hi) and industrial expenses (Kogyo hi). 27. Kyu Kobu Daigakko Shiryo Hensan Kai (ed.) Kyu Kobu Daigakko Shiryo (Documents and materials of the Engineering College) (Tokyo: Toranomon Kai, 1931), p. 129. This passage is taken from a speech from the throne at the inauguration ceremony of the Engineering College held on 11 April 1878. 28. The above-mentioned E. Morell also initially advised setting up the forerunner of the college (Kogaku Ryo). For the services of Henry Dyer, see Nobuhiro Miyoshi, Dyer no Nippon (Dyer and Japan) (Tokyo: Fukumura Shuppan, 1989), and others. For Dyer’s own observations on contemporary Japanese society, see H. Dyer, Dai Nippon: The Britain of the East, A Study in National Evolution (London: Blackie, 1904).

Notes 183 29. The passage is taken from a speech by Dyer, in Nobuhiro Miyoshi, Nihon Kogyo Kyoiku Seiritsu Shi no Kenkyu: Kindai Nihon no Kogyoka to Kyoiku (A history of industrial education in modern Japan) (Tokyo: Kazama Shobo, 1977), p. 279. 30. Teiyukai, Kobu Daigakko Mukashibanashi (Reminiscences of the Engineering College), Teiyukai Brochure, no. 1 (1926), p. 15. 31. ‘Engineering education in Japan’, Nature,17 May 1877, pp. 44–5. 32. Ayahiko Ishibashi, Reminiscence, pt 2, ‘Ayrton sensei no oshiekata’ (How Professor Ayrton taught), in Kyu Kobu Daigakko Shiryo Hensan Kai (ed.) Kyu Kobu Daigakko Shiryo, appendix. The author was a first-class graduate (1879) of the Engineering College. ‘Professor Ayrton’ was William Edward Ayrton who taught physics and electrical engineering at the Engineering College from 1873 to 1878 and determined the gravity at Tokyo during his stay in Japan. 33. Kyu Kobu Daigakko Shiryo Hensan Kai, Kg Kobu Daigakko Shiryo, pp. 133–4. The degree of bachelor later came to be given to second-class graduates as well. Ibid., p. 180. No certificate of graduation at all was given to third-class graduates. 34. Teiyukai, Kobu Daigakko Mukashibanashi (Reminiscences of the Engineering College), p. 35. 35. See Okura Sho, ‘Kobu Sho Enkaku Hokoku’, pp. 405–8. 36. Shida was the founding father of the Electrical Engineering Society in Japan mentioned below, whose life has attracted historians’ interest. For a standard biography, see Fumio Shida, ‘Shida Rinzaburo, Tomiko Kinenroku’ (Memories of Rinzaburo and Tomiko Shida) (Tokyo, for private distribution, 1927). 37. This samurai background of modernizers of Meiji Japan has provided one of the popular subjects in the field of Japanese industrialization. For a general description based on aggregate data, see Everett E. Hagen, On the Theory of Social Change: How Economic Growth Begins (London: Tavistock, 1962), pp. 349–52, ch. 14, appendix table 14.1. For scientists and engineers, see W. H. Brock, ‘The Japanese connexion: engineering in Tokyo, London, and Glasgow at the end of the nineteenth century’, British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 14, no.48 (1981), pp. 227–3; Eikoh Shimao, ‘Some aspects of Japanese science, 1868–1945’, Annals of Science, vol. 46, no. 1 (1989), pp. 69–91; Shigeru Nakayama, Science, Technology and Society in Postwar Japan (London: Kegan Paul, 1991), p. 103, n. 4. 38. For the index of industrial production increase in value terms on a monetary basis, see Somucho Tokeikyoku (ed.) Nihon Choki Tokei Soran (Long-term statistical trends of Japan), vol. 2 (Tokyo: Nihon Tokei Kyokai, 1988), p. 434. For the rising level of education measured in terms of the percentage of children attending school, see Monbusho Chosakyoku (ed.) Nihon no Seicho to Kyoiku: Kyoiku no Tenkai to Keizai no Hattatsu (Growth and education in Japan: educational and economic developments) (Tokyo: Teikoku Chiho Gyosei Gakkai, 1965), appendix 3, materials, pp. 180–1. The urban population rose from 7.9 per cent of the nation in 1898 to 11.6 per cent in 1925. The urban population is estimated by summing the population of the eight largest cities in Japan (Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Hiroshima, Fukuoka), based on Somucho Tokeikyoku data, op.cit., vol. 1 (1987), pp. 66–7, p. 168. 39. Although these points do not fulfil strict one-to-one correspondence to (1) specialization and (2) vocationalization, they are close enough to indicate a general trend. According to sociological usage, a professional society might suggest an authoritative group somewhere between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. 40. Denki Gakkai 50 Nen Shi (Half a century of the Electrical Engineering Society) (Tokyo: Denki Gakkai, 1938), p. 4.

184 Notes 41. ‘Nihon Kogaku Kai hyakushunen o mukaete’ (Commemorating the centenary of the Engineering Society of Japan), in Nihon Kogaku Kai (ed.) Kogaku Soshi/Kogaku Kaishi So Sakuin (A general catalogue of the Engineering Journal) (Tokyo: Yushodo, 1983). 42. This is also confirmed by the fact that the Ministry of Engineering and the Engineering College, having fulfilled their mission of providing an infrastructure for industrialization and fostering human resources, were both abolished in 1885. Specialization, by definition, presupposed these initial investments in human resources and the infrastructure that backed them up. 43. Contemporary engineering-related professional societies in the field of chemistry could also provide a model relevant to the scientific and technological revolution. However, since the Chemical Society (Kagaku Kai) and the Society for Industrial Chemistry (Kogyo Kagaku Kai) were set up independently within this same field (see Table 1.1), it is difficult to employ the field as another model for estimating the degree of vocationalization on an equal footing. The separation of the two societies was so serious that even the president of the Chemical Society, Joji Sakurai, deplored the situation at its fiftieth anniversary (it was not until the postwar period that the situation changed). See Hiroshi Ishiyama, ‘Nihon no gaku kyokai’ (Professional societies in Japan), Gijutsu to Keizai, no. 204 (1984), pp. 26–38. For a standard work on the process of development of Japanese industrial chemistry up to the 1910s, see Chikayoshi Kamatani, Nihon Kindai Kagaku Kogyo no Seiritsu (The evolution of modern industrial chemistry in Japan) (Tokyo: Asakura Shoten, 1989). 44. That is to say, under the first strategy of the Meiji government it was from Britain that the greatest number of foreign employees were introduced, but the second strategy resulted in a different process of professionalization from that in Britain. Whether original achievements were seen in the content of professional science and technology in contemporary Japan is a separate question, which will be discussed in detail in later chapters. 45. In a sense this assumption can be another face of technological determinism. For technological determinism, cf. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx (eds), Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994). As for the economic model, the following point has already been noted: ‘technology transfer almost always occurs because of economic motives, but economic models do not fully explain the process’ (David J. Jeremy (ed.) Technology Transfer and Business Enterprise (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1994), p. xxiii). Although several sociologists have studied the diffusion of technology, they have tended to deal with it by constructing a rather abstract typology. See, for example, Everett Rogers and Floyd Shoemaker, Communication of Innovation: A Cross-Cultural Approach (New York: Free Press, 1971), excerpted in ibid., pp. 52–97. For another sort of historical study on technology transfer with sociological implications, cf. Svante Lindqvist, Technology on Trial: The Introduction of Steam Power Technology into Sweden, 1715–1736 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1984); Tatsuya Kobayashi, Gijutsu Iten: Rekishi karano Kosatsu (Technology transfer: observations on history) (Tokyo: Bunshindo, 1981), ch. 2. 46. Kurt Lewin, ‘Forces behind food habits and methods of change’, Bulletin of the National Research Council, vol. 108 (1943), p. 65. 47. Diana Crane, ‘The gatekeepers of science: some factors affecting the selection of articles for scientific journals’, American Sociologist, vol. 2 (1967), pp. 195–201. The usage was then enlarged by Harriet Zuckerman and Robert Merton to include

Notes 185

48. 49.

50.

51.

52.

53. 54.

the role of regulating scientific manpower and allocating resources for scientific research. See H. Zuckerman and R. K. Merton, ‘Age, aging, and age structure in science’, in Matilda White Riley, Marilyn Johnson, and Anne Foner (eds) A Sociology of Age Stratification, vol. 3 (New York: Russel Sage Foundation, 1972), reprinted in Robert K. Merton, The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), pp. 497–559. Thomas J. Allen, Managing the Flow of Technology (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977), pp. 141–63. For one direction of development, see, for example, Thomas Allen, Michael L. Tushman and Denis M. Lee, ‘Technology transfer as a function of position in the spectrum from research through development to technical service’, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 22, no. 4 (1979), pp. 694–708; for another way, see, for example, Michael L. Tushman and Ralf Katz, ‘External communication and project performance: an investigation into the role of gatekeepers’, Management Science, vol. 26, no. 11 (1980), pp. 1071–85. For an effort to identify gatekeepers, see Jane E. Klobas and Tanya McGill, ‘Identification of technological gatekeepers in the information technology profession’, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, vol. 46, no. 8 (1995), pp. 581–9. On the genealogy of the term with particular reference to this point, see Stuart Macdonald and Christine Williams, ‘Beyond the boundary: an information perspective on the role of the gatekeeper in the organization’, Journal of Product Innovation Management, vol. 10 (1993), pp. 417–27. What is striking about the college is that it placed great emphasis on scientific subjects (for example, mathematics, physics, chemistry, applied dynamics) relevant to the ongoing scientific and technological revolution in shipbuilding, and the recruitment of suitable professors to teach the subjects. See Report of the Committee Appointed to Inquire into the Establishment of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich (London, 1877), appendix no. 1. As for the background to the establishment of the college, see W. John, ‘On the Royal Naval College and the merchant marine’, Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects (abbreviated to TINA hereafter), vol. 19 (1878), pp. 120–36. Kenichi Tominaga, Nihon no Kindaika to Shakai Hendo (Japanese modernization and social change) (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1990), p. 3. Apart from the outstanding place the author has as a researcher in sociological theories in Japan, one of the main reasons for this focus on the author is his broad international prominence as a proponent of this view of Japan’s industrialization process, which dates back to the early 1970s. See, for example, idem, ‘Développement et changement social au Japon: une analyse parsonienne’, Sociologie du Travail, no. 3 (1973), pp. 269–92. As to the relationship between history and sociology, see, for example, Phillip Abrams, Historical Sociology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983). Tominaga, Nihon no Kindaika, p. 144. For an example in economic history, see Hisao Otsuka, ‘Kindaika to sangyoka no rekishiteki kanren ni tsuite: Tokuni hikaku keizaishi no shikaku kara’ (The historical relation between modernization and industrialization, from the viewpoint of comparative economic history), in Otsuka Hisao Chosaku Shu (Collected works of Hisao Otsuka), vol. 4 (Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 1969), pp. 273–92 (first appeared in Tokyo Daigaku Keizaigaku Ronshu, vol. 32, no. 1 (1966), pp. 1–10). For an example in politics, see Masao Maruyama, ‘Nihon ni okeru jiyu ishiki no keisei to tokushitsu’ (The formation and characteristics of a sense of liberty in Japan), in idem., Senchu to Sengo no Aida: 1936–1957 (During the war and after: 1936–1957)

186 Notes

55.

56.

57. 58.

59.

60.

(Tokyo: Misuzushobo, 1976), pp. 297–306 (first appeared in Teikoku Daigaku Shinbun, 21 August 1947). As an example in the history of science, see Kinnosuke Ogura, ‘Ware kagakusha taru o hazu’ (I am ashamed of being a scientist), in Ogura Kinnosuke Chosaku Shu (Collected works of Kinnosuke Ogura), vol. 7 (Tokyo: Keisoshobo, 1974), pp. 124–44 (first appeared in Kaizo, January 1953). Giddens, The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies, p. 165. Although we can certainly find secondary sources mentioned in this context in references and notes, virtually no evidence seems to be adduced to prove the point straightforwardly. Compared with the ‘indigenous’ British industrialization, Marius B. Jansen and Lawrence Stone also state (concerning Japanese industrialization): ‘A ruthlessly modernizing section of the elite seized power in a highly authoritarian society, and deliberately discarded everything which did not contribute to strengthening the resources of the state.’ M. B. Jansen and L. Stone, ‘Education and modernization in Japan and England’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 9, no. 2 (1967), pp. 208–32. In appraising prior studies on Japanese fascism, George Macklin Wilson refers to Germany and Japan ‘where rapid modernization spurred on by the power of the state had brought a relatively high level of development’. G. M. Wilson, ‘A new look at the problem of “Japanese Fascism” ’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 10, no. 4 (1968), pp. 401–12. See Tetsu Hiroshige, Kagaku no Shakaishi: Kindai Nihon no Kagaku Taisei (The social history of science: institutionalization of science in modern Japan) (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1973); Chikayoshi Kamatani, Gijutsu Taikoku Hyakunen no Kei: Nippon no Kindaika to Kokuritsu Kenkyu Kikan (The road to techno-nationalism: Japanese modernization and national research institutes from the Meiji era) (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1988). Kamatani, Gijutsu Taikoku Hyakunen no Kei, p. 80. This becomes still more striking if it is remembered that the same author once pointed out the pitfalls of understanding Japanese industrialization as a process of co-opting science and technology to state control. See C. Kamatani, ‘Kigyo o chushin toshita kenkyu taisei no suii: Sono rekishiteki hatten no tokucho’ (Trends in the institutionalization of research with particular reference to company R&D), in T. Hiroshige (ed.) Nihon Shihonshugi to Kagaku Gijutsu (Capitalism, science and technology in Japan) (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1962), pp. 92–153. As for the detailed examination of the point developed here, see M. Matsumoto, ‘Review: The road to techno-nationalism: Japanese modernization and national research institutes from the Meiji era’, Historia Scientiarum, no. 38 (1989), pp. 75–80. For ‘the big picture’ in the history of science and technology, see ‘A special issue: the big picture’, British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 26, no. 91 (1993). What is means by the big picture in some contexts seems to have a function similar to the stereotypes this chapter refers to. And James A. Secord, a guest editor, is certainly right in saying ‘big picture should not be confused with textbooks’ (ibid., p. 388.) It seems to me that there is one important point not given due emphasis: more than simply broadening topics by importing something new from other fields, or providing episodic accounts based on chronology, what is needed is to produce consistent frameworks to pose significant questions and answer them.

2 The Technology Gatekeepers: The Role of the Navy and Mitsubishi in the Ship Revolution 1. The phrase ‘transfer of a professionalized science and technology’ is used here to refer to the transfer of innovation during a limited historical period, from the end

Notes 187

2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

7. 8. 9.

of the nineteenth century to the present. It emphasizes that what is transferred is the results of the scientific and technological revolution. Previous studies on prewar technology transfer to Japan include the following references: Tatsuya Kobayashi, Gijutsu Iten (Observations based on the history of technology transfer: the US and Japan) (Tokyo: Bunshindo, 1981); Tetsuro Nakaoka, ‘On technological leaps of Japan as a developing country: 1900–1940’, Osaka City University Economic Review, vol. 22 (1987), pp. 1–25; Hoshimi Uchida, ‘Gijutsu iten’ (Technology transfer), in S. Nishikawa and T. Abe, Nihon Keizaishi 4 Sangyoka no Jidai (History of Japan’s economy IV: the age of industrialization), vol. 1 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1990), pp. 256–302; Ian Inkster, Science and Technology in History: An Approach to Industrial Development (London: Macmillan, 1991), esp. pp. 184–204. Regrettably, there is little corroborative study of Japan’s science and technology transfer by sociologists. As one of the few exceptions, see Takeshi Hayashi, Japanese Experience in Technology: From Transfer to Self-Reliance (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1990). Tetsu Hiroshige, Kagaku no Shakaishi (The social history of science) (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1973), pp. 80–1. Hiroshige was the first scholar to describe the social history of modern Japanese science and technology within the global trend to the professionalization of science and technology, who went beyond the dichotomy of superiority or inferiority latent within the Japanese cultural mentality with respect to the West. ‘Cultural mentality’ is used to refer to the concepts, customs and beliefs that govern the life and thought of a particular society. This concept dates back to Pitirim A. Sorokin, an American sociologist in the 1930s and 1940s. The effectiveness of this concept was criticized by his disciple Robert K. Merton, who wrote that ‘quite apart from the differences of intellectual outlook of diverse classes and groups … Sorokin’s approach is primarily suited for an overall characterization of cultures, not for analyzing connections between varied existential conditions and thought within a society.’ As concerns the original usage of the term by Sorokin, reference can be made to P. A. Sorokin, Social and Cultural Dynamics (New York: American, 1937), vol. 1, pp. 72–3. For Merton’s criticism, see R. K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure: Towards the Codification of Theory and Research (New York: Free Press, 1949), p. 467. For the relation between culture and technology in the US, see Bruce Sinclair, New Perspectives on Technology and American Culture (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1986). ‘Gap’ here indicates the difference in the potential of science and technology between the two countries determined by the quality and quantity of the knowledge of the research front of a specific field of science and technology. See also Chapter 5. The approach adopted here analyses the problem from the viewpoint of the agents involved, without relying on the notion of historical accident. Whether approached from an individual decision or aggregate behaviour basis, or from the characteristics of a group as a collective entity (emergent property), an explanation based on historical accident without allowing for human intervention tells us very little sociologically. John I. Thornycroft, ‘On the resistance opposed by water to the motion of vessels of various forms, and the way in which this varies with the velocity’, TINA, vol. 10 (1869), pp. 144–54. Discussion appended to ibid., pp. 150–1. Interpolations are mine. Discussion appended to ibid., p. 152. Ibid., p. 144.

188 Notes 10. The descriptions are based on C. W. Merrifield, ‘Experiments recently proposed on the resistance of ships’, TINA, vol. 11 (1870), pp. 80–93. 11. Reports of the Annual Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at York in 1831, p. 10, quoted in A. Derek Orange, ‘The beginning of the British Association: 1831–1851’, in Roy MacLeod and Peter Collins (eds) The Parliament of Science: The British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831–1981 (Northwood: Science Review, 1981), pp. 43–64. 12. Charles Babbage, Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of Its Causes (London: B. Fellowes, 1830), p. 152. 13. See O. J. R. Howarth, The British Association for the Advancement of Science: A Retrospect 1831–1931 (London: British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1931), appendix 2, pp. 305–22. 14. Merrifield, ‘Experiments’, p. 80. 15. Frederic Manning, The Life of Sir William White (London: John Murray, 1923), p. 68. This passage is in the context within which the results Froude deduced from model ship experiments are referred to in connection with William White’s book, Manual of Naval Architecture published in 1877. 16. R. W. L. Gawn, ‘Historical notes on investigations at the Admiralty experiment works, Torquay’, TINA, vol. 83 (1941), pp. 80–139, appendix 1, Outline description of the Torquay tank and equipment, pp. 115–17. 17. W. Froude, ‘Observations and suggestions on the subject of determining by experiment the resistance of ships’, December 1868, collected in Westcott Abell, ‘William Froude’, TINA, vol. 76 (1934), pp. 243–56, appendix. 18. To be accurate, he began his remark with: ‘Now, Sir, you [chairman] have spoken of very minute models, speaking specifically of one about 24 inches, or something of that kind.’ Merrifield, ‘Experiments’, p. 85. Interpolation is mine. The chairman on this occasion was John Scott Russell; the actual date of the remark was 7 April 1870. 19. W. Froude, ‘On experiments with H. M. S. “Greyhound” ’, TINA, vol. 15 (1874), pp. 36–73. The quotation about amateur inventors is from Nathaniel Barnaby, ‘On mechanical invention in its relation to the improvement of naval architecture’, TINA, vol. 1 (1860), pp. 145–59. According to Barnaby, amateur inventors claimed 272 out of 292 patents on ships accepted during the period from 1618 to 1852. They had been people of all kinds: colonels, graduates of universities, barristers, coal-merchants, wool-dealers, agricultural machinists, upholsterers, goldsmiths, dyers, coach-makers, toy-makers, fruiterers, tallow-chandlers, brewers, and so on. 20. Abell, ‘William Froude’, p. 253. The statement was made on 10 July 1934. 21. F. P. Purvis, ‘On a proposed experimental tank’, Zosen Kyokai Nenpo, no. 6, December (1902), pp. 37–43. 22. Ibid. 23. See discussion appended to Thornycroft, ‘On the resistance opposed by water’, pp. 148–54; ‘William Froude’, Nature, 19 June (1879), pp. 169–73. For Froude’s works, see Institution of Naval Architects (ed.) The Papers of William Froude, 1810–1879 (London: Institution of Naval Architects, 1955). Also, in Japanese, details can be found in the biography of W. Froude by Isamu Yoshioka, ‘William Froude Den: Kindai Kogaku no Akebono, Zosengaku no Chichi’ (Biography of William Froude: father of shipbuilding and the rise of modern engineering) (Tokyo: for private distribution, 1985). 24. See discussion following the paper presentation by F. P. Purvis, ‘On a proposed experimental tank’, p. 44. For a general look at the introduction of the experimental

Notes 189

25. 26.

27.

28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43.

tank to Japan at the time, see also S. Takezawa, ‘Honpo shiken suiso hattatsu shoshi (1)’ (Short history of the development of the experimental tank in Japan, part 1), Nihon Zosen Gakkai Shi, no. 592 (1978), pp. 1–8. Shintaro Motora, ‘An analysis of model propeller experiments’, Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 19 (1916), pp. 43–56. The two numbers were represented in Motora’s discourse, as Cn and Cd respectively. The ‘turning moment’ in Motora’s discourse is today referred to as torque, but here the original term has been used. Also, as Motora himself admitted, the reason for increasing the importance of the propeller test in the experimental tank and, in particular, the propulsion efficiency of the propeller, was the problem of cavitation accompanying the high revolutions of the marine turbine, which was transferred to Japan about the same time. See, ibid., conclusion 1. Motora’s paper is presumed to have been already finished at the end of 1914. See Mitsubishi Jukogyo Nagasaki Kenkyujo Gijutsu Hokoku (Technical report of the Nagasaki Research Institute of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Company, referred to hereafter as Gijutsu Report), no. 33 (1968), p. 108. This report is a collection of typed primary source materials collected for compilation of the history of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Company. (Various corrections to the official history of the company were made after interviews with the personnel involved with model ship experiments at the time.) Since Hiroshige’s statement was made in relation to the early days of the Meiji era, there is a possibility that the science and technology gap had been diminishing from that period until 1916, a possibility which will be examined below. Gijutsu Report, no. 33, p. 5. Ibid., pp. 9–10. Ibid., p. 10. Ibid., pp. 10–11. Ibid., pp. 8–11. Ibid., p. 14. The ship model at this time was a reduced scale model of 1:23.75 of the actual length of 285 feet, similar to the model used by the experimental tank of Denny and Brothers in order to confirm the accuracy and the reproduction of the measurement data. See K. Taniguchi, ‘Historical review of research and development in ship hydrodynamics’, paper presented at the 75th Anniversary of Nagasaki Experimental Tank 1907–1983, May (1983). Gijutsu Report, no. 33, p. 97. Ibid., p. 104. Ibid., pp. 99–100. The accurate estimated cost was 151,938 yen 60 sen. Calculated from the Annual Report of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard (1909), pp. 23–4. In 1918 a darkroom was also added. Annual Report of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard (1907), p. 51; idem (1908), pp. 23–4. The total sales here include sundry revenue account (zatsu shunyu kanjo) and sundry account (zatsu kanjo). The amount of the total sales is based on Annual Report of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard (1908), List of total sales (Sagyo Daka Ichiran), List of profit and loss account (Soneki Kanjo Ichiran). The percentage for the present-day total R&D cost on average is based on Science and Technology Agency, Kagakugijutsu Yoran (Indicators of science and technology), 2002, p. 64 (the data is for the fiscal year of 2000). Gijutsu Report, no. 33, p. 22, pp. 65–93.

190 Notes 44. Gijutsu Report, no. 33, pp. 25–32. Motora also took the graduate course at the Science Department of Tokyo Imperial University for two years from 1910, where he studied mathematics and experimental physics. The name and year of graduation of those graduates of the Shipbuilding Department of Tokyo Imperial University who were employed by the Experimental Tank Unit during the period 1908–17 was as follows: Koshiro Shiba, 1899; Goro Kawahara, 1901; Shintaro Motora, 1905; Fukusaburo Takami, 1905. Since several persons occupied different sub-roles in Table 2.2 through promotion several times during the period, the net total number of engineers and technicians during the period was seven. 45. Also see Chapter 1. The pioneering spirit of the college was taken up in the British science magazine Nature in the same year. ‘An engineering college in Japan’, Nature, 3 April (1873), p. 430. 46. Ministry of the Imperial Japanese Navy (ed.) Kaigun Seido Enkaku (History of the naval institutions) (Tokyo: Kaigun Sho, 1938), vol. 2, p. 459. Although the official name was the Experimental Warship Tank (Kankei Shiken Jo), here the word experimental tank is used for convenience sake. 47. Zosen Kyokai, Nihon Kinsei Zosen Shi (History of Japan’s modern shipbuilding) (Tokyo: Zosen Kyokai, 1935), Taisho era, p. 635. 48. Kaigun Daijin Kanbo Kiroku Ko (Record Office of the Secretary to the Navy Minister), ‘Meiji 39 Nen Gaikoku Chuzaiin Hokoku’ (Report of personnel stationed overseas, 1906), vol. 2 (this report will be abbreviated to Inagawa Report hereafter). 49. Inagawa Report (this report has no page numbers). 50. In (e) of (B), five items such as the tank for melting paraffin wax as the material for ship models were included. 51. Inagawa Report. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid. 56. The oldest navy yard in Japan was the Yokosuka Navy Yard originating in 1864 under the superintendence of the Tokugawa shogunate, where ‘technical staff … consisted entirely of French naval constructors, with their own foremen and leading hands under them, lent by the French government’. And the first Japanese naval vessel built in this yard (the Seiki) was ‘designed by Monsieur Verny, the head of the French naval architects in the yard, and was built and engined by the French naval architects and engineers’. In contrast, around a time when the first Japanese composite naval vessel (the Katsuragi) was built and launched in 1885 by the yard, ‘two foremen were lent by the British government’. Motoki Kondo, ‘Progress of naval construction in Japan’, TINA, vol. 53, pt 2 (1911), pp. 50–60. For the French connection of the Yokosuka Navy Yard in terms of technology learning in its early day, also see Yokosuka Navy Yard (ed.) ‘Gijutsukan oyobi Shokko Kyoiku Enkaku Shi’ (The history of the training of engineers and skilled workers), n.d. 57. Inagawa Report. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid. 60. ‘Rational’ here is used to mean transcending the short-term advantages and partiality for a single agent and expanding the long-term advantages for the collective whole.

Notes 191 61. Gijutsu Report, no. 33, pp. 18–19. 62. The Ministry of the Imperial Japanese Navy (ed.) Kaigun Seido Enkaku, vol. 2, p. 145. According to the ordinance, the Parliamentary Vice-Minister of the Navy was not able to deal with anything pertaining to ‘military secrets and regulations’ (ibid.). In August 1924, the post was revised and came to be called Kaigun Seimu Jikan by the Imperial Ordinance no. 181 of 12 August 1924. 63. This is certainly still only a general approximation to reality. Further corroboration and elaboration will be made in Chapter 3, by describing and analyzing an independent case, the marine turbine whose transfer to Japan took place almost the same time. 64. To be fair, attempts at overcoming the stereotypical view of government-directed industrialization have already been made. See, for example, Richard J. Samuels, ‘Rich Nation, Strong Army’: National Security and Technological Transformation of Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). The background of these attempts seems to have something to do with viewpoints questioning the classical dichotomy of civilization and culture where science and technology is advancing, developing and being popularized as the most important part of civilization. The invalidity of this classical dichotomy was usually demonstrated in the transfer of science and technology to the developing countries. See, for example, Jacques Perrin, Les Transferts de Technologie (Paris: La Découverte/Maspéro, 1983). 65. On the development of policy for national R&D, see Chikayoshi Kamatani, Gijutsu Taikoku Hyakunen no Kei: Nippon no Kindaika to Kokuritsu Kenkyu Kikan (The road to techno-nationalism: Japanese modernization and national research institutes from the Meiji era) (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1988). 66. The contemporary factors surrounding Mitsubishi that reinforced this intrinsic effort to set up an R&D organization before the wartime mobilization, such as market structure and labour processes, form a separate topic. For this, see Miwao Matsumoto, Fune no Kagaku Gijutsu Kakumei to Sangyo Shakai: Igirisu to Nihon no Hikaku Shakaigaku (The scientific and technological revolution in shipbuilding and industrial society in the age of imperialism: a comparative sociology of Britain and Japan) (Tokyo: Dobunkan, 1995), ch. 8. 67. To avoid this possibility, it is vital to make a systematic international comparison that goes beyond the description of cultural items differing in appearance. Here lies the reason why this book makes a thorough investigation of factors which were involved in the transfer of a particular technology both in Britain and Japan (see ibid.). For a study carried out by a sociologist who drew attention to the danger of international comparison without detailed case studies, see K. Ariga, ‘Josetsu kindaika to dento’ (Introduction to modern and traditional Japan), first published in 1963, in Ariga Kizaemon Chosakushu (Kizaemon Ariga’s collected writings), vol. 4 (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1976), pp. 117–42.

3 Technology Gatekeepers Combine: The Emergence of the Japanese Military-Industrial-University Complex 1. Charles A. Parsons, ‘Improvements in the mechanism for propelling and controlling steam vessels’, Patent record no. 394 AD 1894 (kept by Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne). As for events before this patent, see W. Garrett Scaife, ‘Charles Parsons’ experiments with rocket torpedoes: the precursors of the steam turbine’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society for the Study of the History of Engineering and Technology, vol. 60 (1991), pp. 17–29.

192 Notes 2. In particular, how to cope with cavitation caused by the high revolutions of propellers was a problem the full answer to which was unknown even to the original inventor at the time (essentially the situation is the same today). For the problem and the countermeasures adopted by the original inventor, Charles A. Parsons, see C. A. Parsons, ‘The application of the compound steam turbine to the purpose of marine propulsion’, TINA, vol. 38 (1897), pp. 232–42. 3. It is usually said that the Sakuramaru, completed on 9 October 1908, was the first ship with a domestically produced steam turbine. However, to be accurate, the marine steam turbine installed in this ship was not fully domestically produced, since it was produced in accordance with blueprints directly imported from Britain. See Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Gakkai Hakuyo Kikan Chosa Kenkyu Iinkai (Research Committee of the Marine Engineering Society in Japan, abbreviated to RCMESJ hereafter) (ed.) ‘Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Joki Tabin Hen Soko’ (An unpublished manuscript of the history of marine engineering in Japan: the steam turbine), 3.1.2.(3). 4. It is generally supposed that a time lag of this sort was more than thirty years on average for Japan at the time. 5. The first turbine-driven naval vessel was the Mogami as will be mentioned later. 6. The usual response to the question is to refer to the talents of those engineers and foremen in Japan who produced the marine turbine, or to the historical accident that Japan had only slightly earlier introduced the water turbine for generators. For a reference to the talents of individuals, see Yukiko Fukasaku, ‘Technology imports and the development of technological capability in the industrialization of Japan: training and research at Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard 1884–1934’, a doctoral thesis submitted to the University of Sussex in 1988, pp. 129–72 (a shortened version was published in book form entitled Technology and Industrial Development in Prewar Japan, London: Routledge, 1992). For a reference to the historical accident, see Hiroo Kato, ‘1890 nen kara 1945 nen madeno Nihon no hatsudenyo suisha gijutsu no jiritsu katei’ (Course of independence of Japanese water turbine technology for power generation 1890–1945), Kagaku Shi Kenkyu, vol. 23, no.150 (1984), pp. 110–20. For an interesting work on the original invention and the development of the water turbine within a comparative perspective between the US and France, see Edwin T. Layton, Jr, ‘Millwrights and engineers: science, social roles, and the evolution of the turbine in America’, in Wolfgang Krohn, E. T. Layton, Jr, and Peter Weingart (eds) The Dynamics of Science and Technology (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1978), pp. 61–87. As far as we are able to confirm based on contracts, Japan acquired the right for the licence production of the steam turbine for generators as early as 1904, which might provide a suitable topic for further consideration. See C. A. Parsons and Company Ltd, Licences from C. A. Parsons and Company Ltd to Mitsubishi Zosen Kwaisha of Tokyo, Japan (kept by Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne), n.d. 7. A focus on the interests of agents concerned or on their networks has made possible inquiries into the social shaping of science and technology. See, for example, Barry Barnes, Interests and the Growth of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1977); Michel Callon, John Law and Arie Rip (eds) Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology of Science in the Real World (London: Macmillan, 1986); B. Barnes, David Bloor and John Henry, Scientific Knowledge: A Sociological Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Most of these inquiries tend to take up one of the latest contemporary topics in science as case materials. For example, see Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of

Notes 193 Scientific Facts (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979); Michael Mulkay and Nigel G. Gilbert, Opening Pandora’s Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists’ Discourse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Harry M. Collins, Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice (London: Sage, 1985); Brian Martin and Evelleen Richards, ‘Scientific knowledge, controversy, and public decision making’, in Sheila Jasanoff, Gerald E. Markle, James C. Petersen and Trevor J. Pinch (eds) Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (London: Sage, 1995), pp. 506–26; Karin Knorr Cetina, ‘Laboratory studies: the cultural approach to the study of science’, in ibid., pp. 140–66; Karin Knorr Cetina, ‘Laboratory studies and the constructivist approach in the study of science and technology’, Japan Journal for Science, Technology & Society, vol. 2 (1993), pp. 115–50. At least two events seem to have opened the door to applying this sociological approach to technology: first, the breaking of the tradition assuming cognitive dependence of technology upon science; secondly, direction of attention to conceptualizing cognitive change in technology itself. For the former, see Barry Barnes, ‘The science–technology relationship: a model and a query’, Social Studies of Science, vol. 12, no. 2 (1982), pp. 166–72; and for the latter, see Rachel Laudan (ed.) The Nature of Technological Knowledge: Are Models of Scientific Change Relevant? (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1984). For case studies based on this approach, see Donald Mackenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990); Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes and Trevor J. Pinch (eds) The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987); Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983); David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meaning of a New Technology, 1880–1940 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990), and others. However, we have to be careful about hasty application of these concepts, particularly in describing and analyzing technology transfer, because the composite structure involved in the technology transfer provides, in turn, an indispensable context within which alone the meaning of these concepts can be concretely modified. 8. The Navy played a major part in the introduction of Western science and technology into Japan from the early Meiji period, and was indispensable not only to national defence and industrial policy (Fukokukyohei Seisaku) but also to national interest in general, as suggested in Chapter 2. The Navy’s influence on scientific and technological development in Japanese industrialization was by no means uniform over time, however, and the implications with respect to industrial policy, for example, were therefore not uniform. This entails a corollary that stereotypical views of Japanese industrial policy or industrialization as being governmentdirected for the sole purpose of catching up with advanced Western sciences and technologies result from the lack of a full understanding of the behaviour pattern of the public sector (the Navy in this case). Fukokukyohei means ‘Rich Nation, Strong Army’ and Shokusankogyo means the promotion of industrialization. For a study focusing on the former aspect of Japanese industrial policy since the Meiji Restoration, see Richard J. Samuels, ‘Rich Nation, Strong Army’: National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994); for a study focusing on the latter aspect of Japanese industrial policy based on the history of national research institutes of Japan since the Meiji Restoration, see Chikayoshi Kamatani, Gijutsu Taikoku Hyakunen no Kei: Nippon no Kindaika to Kokuritsu kenkyu Kikan (The road to techno-nationalism: Japanese modernization and national research institutes from the Meiji era) (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1988). Also

194 Notes

9.

10.

11. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22.

see Miwao Matsumoto, ‘Review: The road to techno-nationalism: Japanese modernization and national research institutes from the Meiji era’, Historia Scientiarum, no. 38 (1989), pp. 75–80. Understandably, several efforts to revise the stereotypes of government-directed industrialization in Japan have been made by focusing upon, for example, local industries as mentioned in Chapter 1 (for a recent effort of this direction, see Jun Suzuki, Meiji no Kikai Kogyo (Machinery industry in the Meiji period) (Kyoto: Minerva Shobo, 1996). Apart from such efforts, however, a fresh reconsideration of government-directed industrialization by means of a detailed sociological inquiry into the behaviour pattern of the public sectors itself is needed to understand its role as technology gatekeeper. The understanding obtainable from such an inquiry will not only reveal a much more complex structure of contemporary Japanese industrial policy than is usually supposed, but also enable us to gain broader insights into the social function of the public sector in gatekeeping. Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Henshu Iinkai (Editorial Board for the History of Marine Engineering in Japan, abbreviated to EBHME hereafter) (ed.) Teikoku Kaigun Kikan Shi (The history of Imperial Japanese Navy marine engines) (reprinted Tokyo: Hara Shobo, 1975), Ge Kan, pp. 421–2. For the first article on the steam turbine in that journal, see Makoto Saito, ‘Steam turbine ni tsuite’ (On steam turbines), Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 4 (1906), pp. 31–8; Seiichi Terano, ‘ “Tabain” sen ni tsuite’ (On vessels propelled by turbines), Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 4 (1906), pp. 57–9. Although the Engineering Society (Kogaku Kai) established in 1879 was partly concerned with marine engineering, it was much later that the first article on the steam turbine appeared in an official journal of the society. See, for example, Masao Kamo, ‘Joki tabin no hattatsu’ (The development of the steam turbine), Kogaku Kai Shi, vol. 379 (1914), pp. 565–79, vol. 380 (1915), pp. 4–14, vol. 382 (1915), pp. 93–107, vol. 383 (1915), pp. 134–44, vol. 384 (1915), pp. 161–8. EBHME, Teikoku Kaigun Kikan Shi, p. 421. This fact appears all the more noteworthy if we take into account the fact that a proposal for adopting the British-designed Parsons turbine had been made earlier to the Imperial Japanese Navy by A. F. Yarrow who had had a strong connection with the Imperial Japanese Navy in exporting boilers. For his proposal, see EBHME, Teikoku Kaigun Kikan Shi, pp. 426–8. On the invention and the development of the American Curtis type, see Euan F. C. Somerscale, ‘The vertical Curtis steam turbine’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society for the Study of the History of Engineering and Technology, vol. 63 (1992), pp. 1–52. EBHME, Teikoku Kaigun Kikan Shi, p. 423. Ibid., p. 424. After returning to Japan in 1907, he became chief of the marine engine division of the Yokosuka arsenal of the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1908 and was appointed Rear Admiral in 1910. In 1914 he retired due to the so-called Siemens incident. EBHME, Teikoku Kaigun Kikan Shi, p. 430. Ibid., pp. 430–2. Interpolations are mine. Prices of the Curtis turbines included two main bearings and throttle valve governors, and those of the Parsons turbines included propellers, starting valves, pipes and oil arrangements. EBHME, Teikoku Kaigun Kikan Shi, p. 438. Ibid. Ibid., p. 423.

Notes 195 23. Ibid., p. 445. 24. Ibid., pp. 445–6. 25. Immediately after the contract with the Foreriver Shipbuilding Company in 1906, Yoichi Inagawa, an engineer of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was dispatched to the company. His voluminous technical report, submitted to the Imperial Japanese Navy, laid the foundation for the impulse turbine design taught later at the Japanese Naval College. Ryutaro Shibuya, ‘Kyu Kaigun Gijutsu Shiryo’ (Technical documents of the Imperial Japanese Navy) (Tokyo: Seisan Gijutsu Kyokai, for private distribution, 1970), vol. 1, p. 101. Ryutaro Shibuya was one of the key persons of the Navy in introducing and improving the marine turbine after this time, and later became the director of the Technical Headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Navy. He left more than 4000 primary source documents (not collected in the documents mentioned above), which are being catalogued at the Shibuya archives. See Chapter 6. 26. EBHME, Teikoku Kaigun Kikan Shi, p. 454. 27. Ibid., pp. 454–5. As will be mentioned later, this contract was made between the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company, and the Mitsubishi Limited Partnership (Mitsubishi Goshi Kaisha) and the Imperial Japanese Navy. Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard belonged to the Mitsubishi Limited Partnership. For the origin of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, see Yoh Nakanishi, Nihon Kindaika no Kiso Katei: Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosen Sho to sono Roshi Kankei, 1855–1900 (Emergence of a modern Japanese enterprise and its industrial relations – Mitsubishi Shipyard, 1855–1900), 3 vols (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1982, 1983, 2003). 28. EBHME, Teikoku Kaigun Kikan Shi, p. 454. 29. These data were based on a full-scale survey of factories made by the No Shomu Sho (Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce), the prewar counterpart of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. 30. Naval vessels that, from the record of the Annual Report of the Naval Ministry (Kaigun Sho Nenpo), may be judged to have been completed by the ‘knockdown’ way of production are not included here. Naval vessels under construction are also omitted. 31. The roles played by these two firms in accumulating the technology base of the marine turbine should be considered in their own light apart from the orders for naval vessels from the Imperial Japanese Navy, which will be analyzed separately later by focusing on Mitsubishi. This is because the production know-how not contained in blueprints was ‘kept secret’ from private firms by the Navy. See ‘Inagawa Zosen Dai Gishi Gaikoku Chuzaiin Hokoku Dai 267 Go’ (A foreign technical report no. 267 by Navy Chief Engineer Yoichi Inagawa, submitted to the Imperial Japanese Navy), 18 February 1907, Navy Minister’s Secretariat, the Imperial Japanese Navy. 32. EBHME, Teikoku Kaigun Kikan Shi, pp. 452–3, pp. 455–6. In the case of the Kawachi, the shell was produced separately by the Yokosuka arsenal of the Imperial Japanese Navy. 33. See also Chapter 6. 34. The description of the particulars of the first Kanpon type marine steam turbine is based upon RCMESJ, ‘Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi’, Kaigun Hen, appended tables. The steam temperature and pressure are given at the outlet of boilers. Dr Seikan Ishigai, the former president of the Marine Engineering Society of Japan, gave me important technical advice in interpreting the voluminous blueprints of this Kanpon turbine.

196 Notes 35. If we trace the potential production ability of shipbuilding companies back to the financial aid given by the Japanese government through the Shipbuilding Promotion Act (Zosen Shorei Ho) and the Shipping Promotion Act (Kokai Shorei Ho) issued in 1896 (to be mentioned later), the competition in the market is halfcontrolled competition in the long run. In general, similar public policies designed to give financial aid to leading shipbuilding companies have been common to most industrial societies, which might suggest the universal existence of half-controlled competition in the shipbuilding industry. 36. A ‘state interventionist’ rationality in this context generally indicates attaining a socially desirable state by the intervention of public sector agencies, including the military, rather than an approach confined to hiring and fiscal policies alone. A ‘market’ rationality, on the other hand, generally indicates achieving the same goal with minimum intervention on the part of the public sector and the maximum degree of market operation. 37. Within only five years of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s decision to adopt the marine turbine in 1905, the following comprehensive information on the marine turbine was collected and intensively analyzed by the Navy: a theoretical analysis of the infinitesimal heat drop; mechanical loss; layout and installation, and so on. See ‘Kawaji Kaigun Kikan Shosa Sintatsu Dai 137 Go’ (A foreign technical report no. 137 by Engine Lieutenant-Commander Kawaji, submitted to the Imperial Japanese Navy), 18 January 1910, Naval Minister Secretariat, Imperial Japanese Navy; ‘Kawaji Kaigun Kikan Shosa Shintatsu Dai 194 Go’ (A foreign technical report no. 194 by Engine Lieutenant-Commander Kawaji, submitted to the Imperial Japanese Navy), 5 May 1910, Naval Minister Secretariat, Imperial Japanese Navy. As far as we are able to confirm at present, the first such technical report on the marine turbine by engineers of the Navy stationed overseas was submitted to the Navy in 1899. See ‘Fujii Kaigun Kikan Shokan Shintatsu’ (A foreign technical report by Engine Lieutenant-Commander Fujii submitted to the Imperial Japanese Navy), 28 February 1899, Naval Minister Secretariat, Imperial Japanese Navy. 38. When there is only a small technology gap, for example, ‘multiple invention’ may take place, although these actual institutional arrangements vary from one society to another. As for the different milieu in which the De Laval, Parsons, Curtis and Rateau turbines developed nearly simultaneously, see Edward Constant II, The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), pp. 63–82. For a critical appraisal of the concept of ‘multiple invention’ itself, see idem., ‘On the diversity and co-evolution of technological multiples: steam turbines and Pelton water wheels’, Social Studies of Science, vol. 8, no. 2 (1978), pp. 183–210. 39. Similar rationality and active attitude observed in an independent case of the transfer of the experimental tank may also support this. See Chapter 2. 40. From the viewpoint of Western countries, these wars, particularly the RussoJapanese War, also taught them important lessons about marine technology, including battleship design. For this, see for example, ‘Le materiel naval et la bataille de Tsou-Sima’, Le Temps, 13 February (1906); Edinburgh Review, no. 419 (1907), pp. 185–91. On contemporary British battleship design, see David K. Brown, ‘British battleship design, 1840–1904’, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, vol. 6, no. 1 (1981), pp. 79–93. On contemporary British naval policy, giving the background of the Russo-Japanese War, see Jon Tetsuro Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology, and British Naval Policy, 1889–1914 (London: Routledge, 1993), pt 1.

Notes 197 41. Several innovative evolutionary economists have tried to explain technological innovations within or without the framework such as production function, input– output analysis, which might lead to the opening of the black box. ‘National styles of innovations’ proposed by Christopher Freeman, among others, might certainly have some relevance to a study beyond ‘black boxism’ (Richard Whitley) in terms of technology, but unfortunately the concept seems to be too schematic to pinpoint the complex subtleties of the role played by technology gatekeepers as elucidated above. See C. Freeman, Technology Policy and Economic Performance: Lessons from Japan (London: Pinter, 1987). Also see Richard Nelson and Sidney G. Winter, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1982); and Christopher Freeman and Luc Soete (eds) New Explorations in the Economics of Technical Change (London: Pinter, 1990). 42. The transfer of marine steam turbine engines occurred within the context of the parallel link between Japan’s private sector and Britain. For a contemporary view of Japanese shipbuilding circles on the marine turbine, see the official view of the journal, Kogyo, ‘Kaiun gyosha fukaku joki tabin kikan ni chumoku seyo’ (Consider the steam turbine carefully, shipping traders!), Kogyo, no. 15 (1910), pp. 1–3. Another important use of the steam turbine is for power plants. The social significance of the steam turbine for power plants is worthy of distinct treatment from the marine steam turbine in connection with the development and the introduction of generators and electric motors. Therefore, for the present, the argument will not go into the details of the steam turbine for power plants. For a study treating the electrification of Japanese factories which might provide a background for such problems, see Ryoshin Minami, Power Revolution and Industrialization of Japan, 1885–1940 (Tokyo: Kinokuniya, 1987). For the electrification of society within different national contexts, see Hughes, Networks of Power; Alain Beltran, ‘Du luxe au cœur du système: électricité et société dans la région parisienne (1880–1939)’, Annales, 44e année, no. 5 (1989), pp. 1113–35, and others. Also see Edmund N. Todd, ‘A tale of three cities: electrification and the structure of choice in the Ruhr, 1886–1900’, Social Studies of Science, vol. 17, no. 3 (1987), pp. 387–412; Robert U. Ayres, The Next Industrial Revolution: Reviving Industry through Innovation (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1984), pp. 110–25. 43. Annual Report of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard (Mitsubishi Zosenjo Nenpo), 1905, p. 45. 44. Early Parsons Plant to Mitsubishi (kept by NEI Parsons, Ltd, Newcastle-uponTyne). To be accurate, the company exporting these turbine-generators was not the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company at Wallsend mentioned above but C. A. Parsons and Company at Heaton set up by C. A. Parsons in 1889 for the production of turbine-generators and steam turbines for land purposes. 45. Kozo Yokoyama, ‘Mitsubishi Juko Shashi Genko’ (A manuscript of the history of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, Ltd), n.d., p.3. 46. Iwasaki Ke Denki Kanko Kai (ed.) Iwasaki Yanosuke Den (A biography of Yanosuke Iwasaki), Gen Kan (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1971), pp. 323–4. 47. Ibid., p. 325. 48. Ibid., p. 324. Interpolations are mine. 49. On the details of the Tenyomaru, see Seiichi Terano and Chuzaburo Shiba ‘Remarks on the design and service performance of the transpacific liners Tenyo Maru and Chiyo Maru’, TINA, vol. 53, pt 2 (1911), pp. 184–92. Also see, Tetsuro Nakaoka, ‘On technological leaps of Japan as a developing country, 1900–1940’, Osaka City University Economic Review, no. 22 (1987), pp. 1–25.

198 Notes 50. Taijiro Asano and Ryozo Asano, Soichiro Asano (Tokyo: Asano Bunko, 1923), pp. 490–1. 51. ‘Shiota Taisuke Jijoden’ (The autobiography of Taisuke Shiota) (based on an interview by Masaki Uchiyama for private distribution, 1938), p. 315. 52. Samuel Pringle even boarded the ship as a supervising engineer when it was transferred to Yokohama. The story of Pringle is based upon the Annual Report of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, 1907, pp. 63–4; Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo Shi (1) (The history of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard: 1) (Nagasaki: Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, 1928), pp. 121–2. 53. Based on the Annual Report of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, 1906, p. 19. 54. Seiichi Terano, ‘Tabain sen ni tsuite’ (On turbine ships), Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 4 (1906), pp. 57–9. 55. The expression within quotation marks is quoted from Shigeichi Yadori, Shoda Heigoro (Tokyo: Taikyosha, 1932), p. 70. 56. Kaiun Shincho Hoho Chosa Iinkai ni okeru Shoda Heigoro Kojutsu (Presentation by Heigoro Shoda at the Research Committee on Shipping Expansion held on 6 February 1895), kept by University of Tokyo Library. 57. Prescribed by Clause 4 of the law. See Law No. 16, Zosen Shorei Ho o Sadamu (Ordaining the Shipbuilding Promotion Law), Classified public record (Kobun Ruiju), file 20, vol. 24, 23 March 1896. According to its initial plan, (1) government subsidies were to be given only to iron or steel steamers of 1000 gross tons or more and (2) the rate of subsidy was 20 yen per 1 ton gross (see Kaiun Shincho Hoho Chosa Iinkai ni okeru Shoda Heigoro Kojutsu, above). When the law was actually enacted, the limit for these subsidies was changed to 700 gross tons or more. See Clause 3 of the Law no. 16 mentioned above. The Shipping Promotion Law was revised in 1899. See Law No. 96, Kokai Shorei Ho chu o Kaisei Su (Revising the Shipping Promotion Law), Classified public record, file 23, vol. 32, 28 March 1899. 58. There was another company that introduced the marine turbine to Japan: the Kawasaki Shipbuilding Company made a contract to introduce the production technology of the marine turbine later, on 18 January 1907. But the marine turbine on this occasion was not Parsons’ design but the Curtis turbine, one of the improved types of the Parsons turbine, which was first produced by the International Curtis Marine Turbine Company in the US. And Kawasaki completed the first production of the marine turbine in 1912, four years after Mitsubishi’s first production. Because the aim of this chapter is to focus on the earliest transfer of the first product innovation by private companies, we will set aside the history of the introduction of the Curtis turbine for the present. What is mentioned above is based on Kawasaki Heavy Industry Ltd, ‘Kawasaki Juko Joki Tabin Hattatsu Shi: Senzen Hen’ (A manuscript of the history of steam turbine development in Kawasaki Heavy Industry Ltd: prewar period), 1942 (a manuscript kept by Dr Yasuo Takeda). The history of turbine development within a comparative perspective, whether the working fluid is steam or water, seems to deserve separate consideration. See Layton, Jr, ‘Millwrights and engineers’; Constant, The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution. 59. The Tenyomaru and Shunyomaru were, respectively, the 190th and the 203rd ships constructed by the shipyard. Based on Mitsubishi Zosen, Sogyo Hyakunen no Nagasaki Zosenjo (A centenary history of the Nagasaki Shipyard) (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Zosenjo, 1957), p. 171: appendix: the list of main products (Shuyo Seihin Ichiran Hyo) 1; the list of main products 2. Strictly speaking, the

Notes 199

60.

61.

62. 63.

64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

Sakuramaru, completed on 9 October 1908, was the first ship with a domestically produced steam turbine. Since this ship appears to have been built as a converted cruiser for the Navy, we set aside this ship to focus upon merchant ships. For the strategy of the Imperial Japanese Navy in introducing this foreign technology, see earlier in this chapter. As regards the dependence on imported blueprints at this time, I was able to obtain an insight into contemporary practice by interviewing a former president of the Marine Engineering Society of Japan, Dr Seikan Ishigai, on 11 June 1987. For a taxonomy of the concept of rationality, see John H. Goldthorpe, ‘Rational action theory for sociology’, British Journal of Sociology, vol. 49, no. 2 (1998), pp. 167–92. In his taxonomy, rationality, here means weak, situational, special rationality, and non-rationality means the non-existence of rationality in this sense, though this kind of taxonomic argument contains no substantial information enabling us to specify the importance of the entrepreneurship of technology gatekeepers. In line with classical sociological tradition, the importance of the definition of situation given by agents seems to hold researchers’ attention again in action theories (for example, Special issue, European Sociological Review, vol. 12, no. 2 (1996), though the above lack of specification can be observed in this emphasis on the definition of situation too). For this, see Constant, The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution, pp. 63–82. For a theoretical consideration of the process by an economist, see Nathan Rosenberg, Inside the Black Box: Technologies and Economies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 120–40. ‘The economy of steam turbines in cruisers’, Engineering, 18 November (1904), pp. 689–92. Ibid. For the connection of the steam turbine with the development of the turbojet engine, see Constant, The Origin of the Turbojet Revolution. C. A. Parsons, ‘The application of the marine steam turbine and mechanical gearing to merchant ships’, TINA, vol. 52 (1910), pp. 168–72. Yokoyama, ‘Mitsubishi Juko Shashi Genko’ (Manuscript history of Mitsubishi), pp. 3–5. Ibid., p. 4. Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Henshu Iinkai, pp. 454–5. Ibid., p. 430. Based on Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo Keireki Sho (Collection of Curriculum Vitae), n.d. (kept by Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard) There is a vast amount of literature in development economics which deals with this topic in technology transfer. To cite only a few examples here, see Richard R. Nelson, ‘Less developed countries – technology transfer and adaptation: the role of the indigenous science community’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 23, no. 1 (1974), pp. 61–77; Lynn K. Mytelka, ‘Stimulating effective technology transfer: the case of textiles in Africa’, in Nathan Rosenberg and Claudio Frischtak (eds) International Technology Transfer: Concepts, Measures, and Comparisons (New York: Praeger, 1985), pp. 77–126; J-J. Salomon, A. Lebeau and C. Sachs-Jeantet (eds) The Uncertain Quest: Science, Technology and Development (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1994), and so on. Taking the subject one step further, there is often the problem of a colonial context, within which imbalance in various terms between advanced and developing countries is revealed. See, for example, P. Petitjean, C. Jami and A. M. Moulin (eds) Sciences and

200 Notes

74.

75. 76.

77. 78. 79.

80. 81.

82.

Empires: Historical Studies about Scientific Development and European Expansion (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1992); Lewis Pyenson, Civilizing Mission: Exact Science and French Overseas Expansion, 1830–1940 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); Jacques Gaillard, V. V. Krishna and Roland Waast (eds) Scientific Communities in the Developing World (New Delhi: Sage, 1997); Deepak Kumar, Science and the Raj, 1857–1905 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), and so on. This department of the Imperial University originated from that of the University of Tokyo established in 1877, which further originated from the Engineering College (Kobu Daigakko), established in 1873. For a study on this initial college based upon primary source materials, see Yasushi Kakihara, ‘Kindai nihon no kogaku kyoiku ni okeru kagaku to jicchi no sokoku’ (Science versus practice in engineering education in modern Japan), Japan Journal for Science, Technology and Society, vol. 5 (1996), pp. 1–20. Since there were many changes in the name of the higher engineering educational system, the name ‘Imperial University of Tokyo’ or ‘Imperial University’ is used here, depending upon the context. Shoko Ofuku (Documents of correspondence), 1884 (kept by University of Tokyo), Ko Go, p. 125. Tokyo Daigaku Hyakunen Shi Henshu Iinkai (ed.) Tokyo Daigaku Hyakunen Shi (A centenary history of the University of Tokyo) (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1984), Shiryo 1, p. 88. Shoko Ofuku (Documents of correspondence), 1884 (kept by University of Tokyo), Ko Go, p. 125. Tokyo Daigaku Hyakunen Shi Henshu Iinkai (ed.) Hyakunen Shi, Shiryo 2, p. 535. Okurasho (ed.) ‘Kobusho Enkaku Hokoku’ (A report on the origin of the Ministry of Engineering, Tokyo, 1889), collected in Hyoe Ouchi and Takao Tsuchiya (eds) Meiji Zenki Zaisei Keizai Shiryo Shusei (Collection of the historical documents on finance and economy in the early Meiji period), vol. 17, pt 1 (Tokyo: Meiji Bunken Shiryo Kanko Kai, 1964), p. 395. Interpolations by author. Saiichiro Uchimaru, Joki Tabin (Steam turbine) (Tokyo: Maruzen, 1908). If we consider change in the value of the currency from 1894 to 1911 in accordance with various price indices, the cost becomes even less than one-ninth of the sum spent by Britain. This estimation is based on various price indices given by B. R. Mitchell and P. Deane, Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962). pp. 471–6. Studies on the aspects of the risk-taking entrepreneurship in Japanese industrialization started from Schumpeterian tradition (for example, J. Hirshmeier, The Origins of Entrepreneurship in Meiji Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), though they have tended to focus upon biographies of successful businessmen without connecting them with institutional patterns of behaviour and the risk-avoiding strategy of the public sector including the military. Unfortunately, reliable, detailed and comprehensive studies on the militaryindustrial-university complex in prewar Japan have not yet been attempted.

4 ‘Spin-on’ and Latecomers’ Advantages Reconsidered: British Development and Japanese Transfer in Social Context 1. L. F. Haber, The Chemical Industry during the 19th Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958); L. S. Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Business at GE and Bell, 1876–1926 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); G. Wise, ‘Ionists in industry: physical chemistry at General Electric, 1900–1915’, Isis, vol. 74, no. 271 (1983), pp. 7–21; G. Meyer-Thurow,

Notes 201

2.

3.

4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

18. 19.

‘The industrialization of invention: a case study from the German chemical industry’, Isis, vol. 73, no. 268 (1982), pp. 363–81; F. Pfetsch, ‘Scientific organization and science policy in Imperial Germany, 1871–1914: the foundation of the Imperial Institute of Physics and Technology’, Minerva, vol. 8, no. 4 (1970), pp. 554–80, and others. Although ‘social process’ is a term originating in sociology in the 1920s and usually used in the literature of social psychology, it is used here to mean the dynamic processes of multiple agents whose patterns of interaction can be observed. Agents here include both individual and collectivity. For an extension of such a wider usage of the term ‘agent’, see Bruno Latour, Les microbes: guerre et paix suivi d’ irréductions (Paris: A. M. Métailié, 1984). In the biographies of scientists and engineers, there has been a striking tendency to misleadingly call all social residual factors, other than cognitive development, ‘sociological’. As far as dramatic scaling up of scientific activity originating in the first half of the nineteenth century is concerned, the term ‘the Second Scientific Revolution’ was invented by R. Hahn to express that change based on a case study of L’Academie des Sciences in Paris. See R. Hahn, The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 275. On more general institutional change, see E. Mendelsohn, ‘The context of nineteenth century science’, in B. Z. Jones (ed.) The Golden Age of Science: 30 Portraits of the Giants of 19th Century Science (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), p. xiii ff. The words of A. F. Yarrow, the Vice-President of the Institution of Naval Architects (the INA) at the discussion of a paper presented by Charles A. Parsons at the Summer Meeting of the 44th Session of the INA held on 26 June 1903. Parsons’ paper appeared as ‘The steam turbine and its application to the propulsion of vessels’ in TINA, vol. 45 (1903), pp. 284–311, and Yarrow’s words are ibid., p. 311. For an account by someone directly involved in this event, the captain of the Turbinia, see C. J. Leyland, ‘Turbinia jottings’, Heaton Works Journal, June (1935), pp. 25–32. The Times, 27 June 1897. Invention, 3 July 1897. Ibid., 10 July 1897. Shipping Gazette of Lloyd’s List, 14 October 1897. Ibid., 28 October 1897. L’Industrie, 1 August 1897. Shipping Gazette of Lloyd’s List, 16 November 1897. Daily Mail, 2 August 1898. To be accurate, this is a continuation of an article in the Daily Mail of 29 July, in which we can find a slightly more correct description. Daily Mail, 2 August 1898. Calculated from C. A. Parsons, ‘The marine steam turbine from 1894 to 1910’, TINA, vol. 53, pt 2 (1911), pp. 79–134. For a topic of naval armament race taken up in the contemporary British parliament, see ‘McKenna introduces navy estimates’, 16 March 1909, Hansard, 5th series, II, cols., pp. 931–8, pp. 943–4. Based on Parsons, ‘The marine steam turbine’. For a classical work by a sociologist employing this way of thinking, see Robert K. Merton, ‘Fluctuations in the rate of industrial invention’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 49, May (1935), pp. 454–74. Patent Records no. 394, AD 1894 (Newcastle-upon-Tyne City Library). ‘The old patent law’ mentioned here covers the period from 1617 to 30 September 1852. On 1 October 1852 the new patent law was enacted, which was reformed

202 Notes

20.

21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28.

29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

once again in 1883. For the social process through which the old patent law was changed to the new one in 1852, see Harold Irvin Dutton, The Patent System and Inventive Activity during the Industrial Revolution, 1750–1852 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), esp. pp. 57–68. Nathaniel Barnaby, ‘On mechanical invention in its relation to the improvement of naval architecture’, TINA, vol. 1 (1860), pp. 145–59. For a pioneering work by a sociologist of technology which pointed out the decrease in the role played by gentlemen and the nobility since the mid-nineteenth century based on a reanalysis of patent applicants for vessel propulsion systems, see S. C. Gilfillan, The Sociology of Invention (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935), p. 84. The first affiliation with the Institution of Civil Engineers was as a student member and that with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers was as a graduate member. See Rollo Appleyard, Charles Parsons: His Life and Work (London: Constable, 1933), appendix, p. 307; Joe F. Clarke, ‘An almost unknown great man: Charles Parsons and the significance of the patent of 1884’, Occasional Papers in the History of Science and Technology, no. 4, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Polytechnic, 1984, A chronology. As for his enrolment as an ‘Engineer’, see Figure 4.4. He came from the Irish nobility. See Appleyard, Charles Parsons, pp. 304–5. Isaac Todhunter, Conflict of Studies and Other Essays on Subjects connected with Education (London: Macmillan, 1873), pp. 18–19. See M. Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry: 1850–1970 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), pp. 31–60. Second Report of the Royal Commissioners on Technical Instruction, vol. 1 (London: 1884), p. 422. Interpolation is by the author. C. A. Parsons, ‘The application of the compound steam turbine to the purpose of marine propulsion’, TINA, vol. 38 (1897), pp. 232–42. The descriptions are based on NEI Parsons Ltd, NEI Parsons: A Century of Power (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, n.d.), p. 3. When Parsons dissolved his junior partnership with Clarke Chapman and Company, there arose a patent right dispute between Parsons and that company concerning the axial flow turbine developed by Parsons while employed by the company. Against this background, Parsons was then obliged to develop another type of turbine in his new company, which eventually led to the development of the radial flow turbine. NEI Parsons Ltd, NEI Parsons, p. 3. Clarke, ‘An almost unknown great man’. For the cost of the Turbinia, see mimeograph, ‘Sir Charles Parsons’ Steam Yacht, Turbinia’, n.d., Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, p. 2. This was the amount of money paid to Parsons as a result of the settlement of the patent right dispute between Parsons and Clarke Chapman and Company concerning the axial flow turbine. See Clarke, ‘An almost unknown great man’, chronology. Parsons, ‘The marine steam turbine’. Appleyard, Charles Parsons, p. 91. Parsons, ‘The application of the compound steam turbine’. Ibid. Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company Ltd, ‘TURBINIA’ brochure, pp. 5–6. Ibid. At a discussion of his first paper on the marine steam turbine on 8 April 1897, Parsons states as follows: ‘With regard to the question of cavitation, this appears to begin – as far as my observations go (which are not nearly so elaborate as

Notes 203

37.

38.

39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48.

49.

50. 51. 52.

Mr. Thornycroft’s), but, so far as they go, they confirm the views which Mr. Thornycroft expressed in his paper a year or two ago – namely, that cavitation begins when the mean pressure on the blades exceeds 11⁄4 lbs’ (Parsons, ‘The application of the compound steam turbine’, p. 241). As for Thornycroft’s original view, see John I. Thorneycroft and W. S. Barnaby, ‘Torpedo-boat destroyers’, Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. 122 (1895), pp. 51–72. See Parsons, ‘The application of the compound steam turbine’, appendix: Trials of the Turbinia (p. 237); James A. Ewing, ‘Preliminary Report on Trials of the Steamer Turbinia’, 24 April 1897, Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. For the details of the reorganization, see Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company, Ltd, incorporated under the Companies Acts, ‘For Private Circulation Only: Prospectus’, 30 July 1897, Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Five out of six directors contributing to the first Marine Steam Turbine Company became directors/shareholders of this reorganized commercial concern. Those five directors were C. A. Parsons himself, the Earl of Rosse (brother of C. A. Parsons), Christopher J. Leyland, J. B. Simpson, and A. A. Campbell Swinton. See the above prospectus issued in 1897 and Appleyard, Charles Parsons, p. 91. D. J. Jeremy and C. Shaw (eds), Dictionary of Business Biography: A Biographical Dictionary of Business Leaders Active in Britain in the Period 1860–1980, vol. 4 (London: Butterworths, 1985), p. 543. Ibid. For the first paid-up capital of the company, see Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company Ltd, ‘Prospectus’, 1897. Jeremy and Shaw, Dictionary of Business Biography, p. 543. The company’s gross sales for fiscal 1900 are not known. As for the orders for the Cobra and the Viper, see Appleyard, Charles Parsons, pp. 140–58. And both were lost in accidents three years later (caused by factors unrelated to the performance of the turbines installed). Ibid., p. 147. Appleyard, Charles Parsons, p. 131. Interpolation is by the author. As for the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors, see K. H. W. Thomas, ‘The Royal Corps of Naval Constructors: a centenary review’, Naval Architect, September (1983), pp. 289–300. A word coined by Sir George Hamilton. F. Manning, The Life of Sir William White (London: John Murray, 1923), p. viii. C. A. Parsons and George G. Stoney, ‘The steam-turbine’, Excerpt Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. 158, Part I (1906), p. 41. Interpolations are the author’s. Today the public runs of the Turbinia are believed to have been unofficially approved by the Navy beforehand. ‘Presentation of the honorary freedom of Newcastle upon Tyne to the Hon. Sir Charles Algernon Parsons’, North-East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders, vol. 30 (1915), pp. 582–93; Clarke, ‘An almost unknown great man’. Stanley V. Goodall, ‘Sir Charles Parsons and the Royal Navy’, TINA, vol. 84 (1942), pp. 1–16. Ibid. Interpolation is by the author. To be accurate, this characteristic of wave resistance holds good only for the range of speed that Parsons and Froude thought of at this time. At higher speeds with a Froude number of more than 0.5, there appears another summit so that wave resistance has a multiple-peak characteristic. As for the Froude number, see Chapter 2.

204 Notes 53. See Isamu Yoshioka, ‘William Froude Den: Kindai Kogaku no Akebono, Zosengaku no Chichi’ (A biography of William Froude, the founding father of shipbuilding and the dawn of modern engineering) (Tokyo: for private distribution, 1985), p. 342. 54. For a work in the Victorian social context within which various engineering work is coupled with energy physics, including thermodynamics, see Crosbie Smith and M. Norton Wise, Energy and Empire: A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 55. As far as the genealogy of the development of the steam turbine is concerned, this example has also a close interconnection with the water turbine and the turbojet engine. On the connection with the water turbine, giving a counterproof of the hypothesis of ‘multiple invention’ formulated by Robert K. Merton, see Edward W. Constant II, ‘On the diversity and coevolution of technological multiples: steam turbine and Pelton water wheels’, Social Studies of Science, vol. 8, no. 2 (1978), pp. 183–210. On that with the turbojet engine, see idem, The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980). 56. On the social background of the revolution in government regarding power technology, see P. W. J. Bartrip, ‘The state and the steam boiler in nineteenth century Britain’, International Review of Social History, vol. 25, pt 1 (1980), pp. 77–105. 57. See, for example, Herbert Spencer, Over-Legislation: An Essay (Tokyo: Tokio Daigaku, 1878), pp. 19–53. Also see P. Abrams, The Origin of British Sociology, 1834–1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 76. 58. There were subsequent public bodies in Britain that were formed to inquire about technical matters relating to the ship revolution in the second half of the nineteenth century (year within bracket indicates the year of publication of their reports): Admiralty Committee on Marine Engines (1859), Admiralty Committee on Metals (1867), Admiralty Committee on Designs (1872), Royal Commission on Technical Instruction (1884), Admiralty Committee on Boilers (1893–4). 59. Walter G. Vincenti, What Engineers Know and How They Know it: Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), p. 236. 60. Based on ibid., table 7-1 (p. 235). Also see John M. Staudenmaier, Technology’s Storytellers: Reweaving the Human Fabric (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), pp. 103–20. 61. C. A. Parsons, ‘Motive power’, presidential address to the Birmingham and Midland Institute, Proceedings, 12 October (1922). 62. In his early notes on theoretical calculations for the steam turbine, Parsons incorporated a table addressing the practical problems of turbine design, such as the number of pairs of elementary turbines for a duplicate expansion based on the changing volume and velocity of steam. See Alex Richardson, The Evolution of the Parsons Steam Turbine (London: Offices of Engineering, 1911), p. 19, table IV. 63. Donald S. L. Cardwell, Technology, Science and History (London: Heinemann, 1972), p. 172. 64. The descriptions are based upon Iwasaki Ke Denki Kanko Kai (ed.) Iwasaki Yanosuke Den (A biography of Yanosuke Iwasaki), Ge Kan (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1971), pp. 296–9. These successive entries of Japanese engineers into Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard were remarkable in the climate of the time, when there were few established career patterns and recruiting qualified engineers into private enterprises had not yet become usual in Japan. On the Nagasaki Shipyard from the last days of the Shogunate to the middle of the 1880s, see Yoh Nakanishi, Nihon Kindaika no Kiso Katei: Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosen Sho to sono Roshi Kankei, 1855–1900 (Emergence of a modern Japanese enterprise

Notes 205

65. 66. 67.

68. 69.

70. 71. 72. 73.

74.

75.

76.

77. 78.

and its industrial relations – Mitsubishi Shipyard: 1855–1900), 3 vols (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1982, 1983, 2003). Kozo Yokoyama, ‘Hakuyo mekanikaru redakushon gia ni tsuite’ (On mechanical reduction gears for turbine ships), Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 28 (1921), pp. 94–140. Kozo Yokoyama, ‘Zai Eikoku Kengaku Hokoku’ (A report of studies in Britain), 1912 (kept by Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives, Nagasaki). Based on Keireki Sho (Employee records), n.d., Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives, Nagasaki; Tokyo Daigaku, Sotsugyosei Shimei Roku (List of alumni, University of Tokyo). Of course, at this stage in the development of the marine turbine, superheated steam was not yet used. The descriptions are based on Mitsubishi Jukogyo Nagasaki Kenkyujo Gijutsu Hokoku (Technical report of the Nagasaki Research Institute of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Company), no. 15 (1966) (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives), pp. 12–17. This report (henceforth Gijutsu Report) is a compilation of primary source materials including interviews with parties concerned, which was expected to provide a basis for writing the history of the Nagasaki Research Institute. Gijutsu Report, no. 15, p. 16. Ibid., p. 14. Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo (ed.) Shinshu no Ura Yawa (Notes on the shipyard) (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Zosen, 1961), p.51; Gijutsu Hokoku, pp. 1–42. The descriptions are based on Gijutsu Report, no. 15, pp. 18–38. From this material, it appears that the description given by Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, Shinshu no Ura Yawa, that the analysis room had been put under the control of the engine design engineer before the organizational role of the Material Testing Laboratory within the company was first defined in 1908 is erroneous (see Gijutsu Report, no. 15, p. 13). The amount of the budget allotted to the Materials Testing Laboratory is based on the Annual Report of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, 1906, p. 23; 1916, p. 15. Taking into account the change in currency value during the decade based on various price indices, the expansion rate amounts to about 48–57 times. On various price indices, see Kazushi Okawa, Miyohei Shinohara and Mataji Umemura (eds), Choki Keizai Tokei 8 Bukka (Long-term economic statistics 8: price) (Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Shinpo Sha, 1967), statistical table 1, p. 134. Kozo Yokoyama, ‘Mitsubishi Juko Shashi Genko’ (A manuscript of the history of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Ltd), n.d., p.50; Ichiro Itaka, ‘Do o shuseibun to suru Cu-Al-Ni gokin no kenkyu’ (Study on Cu-Al-Ni alloy), Kikai Gakkai Shi, vol. 25, no. 72 (1922), pp. 1–27; idem, ‘Shin tarubin yoku zairyo gokin ni tsuite’ (On new metals for turbine blades), Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 34 (1924), pp. 83–99. Regarding copper mines in Japan, famous mines such as Ashio and Besshi had been in operation since the Edo period. For a detailed discussion of the sociological implications of this effort, taking into account both the market structure and labour processes, see Miwao Matsumoto, Fune no Kagaku Gijutsu Kakumei to Sangyo Shakai: Igirisu to Nihon no Hikaku Shakaigaku (The scientific and technological revolution in shipbuilding and industrial societies in the age of imperialism: a comparative sociology of Britain and Japan) (Tokyo: Dobunkan, 1995), ch. 8, ch. 12. A. Richardson, The Evolution of the Parson steam Turbine, p. 228. Mikio Sumiya (ed.) Nippon Shokugyo Kunren Hatten Shi, Jo kan: Senshin Gijutsu Dochakuka no Katei (The history of the development of industrial training in

206 Notes

79.

80.

81.

82.

83.

84.

85.

86. 87.

88. 89. 90.

91.

92.

Japan, part 1: The process of making advanced technology take root) (Tokyo: Nihon Rodo Kyokai, 1970), p. 179. Interpolations are by the author. Mitsubishi Kogyo Gakko, Mitsubishi Kogyo Gakko Ichiran (A synopsis of the Mitsubishi Industrial School), Nagasaki, May 1922, p.1. Hisaya Iwasaki was the president of the Mitsubishi Head Office which administered a number of Mitsubishi companies including Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard. Mitsubishi Honsha Shomubu Chosaka, Rodosha Toriatsukaikata ni kansuru Chosa Hokokusho (A report on how to manage workers) (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Zosen Jo, 1914), appendix, p. 39. The descriptions of the Mitsubishi Industrial Preparatory School are based on Gijutsu Gakko Enkaku (The origin of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Technical School), mimeograph, Nagasaki, December 1968, 3 pp.; Mitsubishi Kogyo Gakko (Synopsis of the Mitsubishi Industrial School), pp. 14–15, p. 71. Nihon Kagakushi Gakkai (ed.) Nippon Kagaku Gijutsu Shi Taikei (An outline of the history of science and technology in Japan) (Tokyo: Daiichi Hoki Shuppan, 1965), vol. 9, pp. 11–12, pp. 325–6. Also see Hiroshi Hazama, Nihon ni okeru Roshi Kyocho no Teiryu (The origins of industrial conciliation in Japan) (Tokyo: Waseda Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1978). As for the contemporary educational system and qualifying examination in Japan as a general background to this situation, see Ikuo Amano, Shiken no Shakaishi (The social history of entrance examinations in modern Japan) (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1983). Estimated from Monbusho, Sangyo Kyoiku 70 Nen Shi (70 years of industrial education) (Tokyo: Monbusho, 1965), appendix 4: I, pp. 1001–3. Since it was prescribed that ‘Apprentices’ schools (totei gakko) are to be considered as a sort of industrial school’ (Industrial School Act [Jitsugyo Gakko Rei], Imperial Ordinance [Chokurei], No. 29), the estimate here counts all apprentices’ schools as industrial schools. Sangyo Kunren Hakusho Henshu Iinkai (ed.) Sangyo Kunren 100 Nen Shi: Nihon no Keizai Seicho to Sangyo Kunren (A hundred years of industrial training: economic growth and industrial training in Japan) (Tokyo: Nihon Sangyo Kunren Kyokai, 1971), pp. 256–61. Keigo Makino, ‘Nagasaki-shi Mitsubishi zosenshoritsu Mitsubishi Kogyo Yobi Gakko no jokyo’ (On the Mitsubishi Industrial Preparatory School at Nagasaki), Kyoiku Koho, no. 308 (1906), pp. 40–3. Annual Report of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, 1904–14. The average number of graduates from the Mitsubishi Industrial Preparatory School during 1904–14 amounted to 39 in the drawing office, which averaged 63 personnel during the same period. Estimated based upon Annual Report of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, 1904–14. Mitsubishi Honsha Shomubu Chosa Ka, (Report on how to manage workers), p. 62. Mitsubishi Kogyo Gakko (Synopsis of Mitsubishi Industrial School), p. 62. Sanshiro Okano is the first graduate as far as we know who was concerned with the design. See Yokoyama, ‘Mitsubishi Juko Shashi Genko’ (Manuscript history of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry), p. 3. ‘Mitsubishi Zosen Shoin Hatsumei Tokkyo ni kakawaru Seiki’ (The regulation on inventions and patents of employees of the Mitsubishi Shipyard). See Mitsubishi Sha-Shi Kanko Kai (ed.) Mitsubishi Sha-Shi (The history of the Mitsubishi Company), vol. 21: 1906–11 (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1980), p. 953. Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, ‘Shokko Katei Jotai sonota Tokei Hyo’ (Statistical survey of the workers), Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, Nagasaki, 1923, pp. 23–4.

Notes 207 93. See Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company Ltd, ‘Prospectus’; Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo Shi (1) (The history of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard (1) (Nagasaki: Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, 1928), p. 34. The estimated value of the capital of the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company is based upon the average exchange rate with London at Yokohama in 1897 (1 ¥ = 2 s. 0.4 d.), when the company was set up. 94. Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 354. 95. In this context, the general background of Mitsubishi Zaibatsu might be relevant. See William D. Wray, Mitsubishi and the NYK, 1870–1914: Business Strategy in the Japanese Shipping Industry (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), and others. 96. Hyo Hamada, ‘Rateau tarubin ni kakawaru ken’ (A matter concerning the Rateau turbine), 17 July 1920, Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives, Nagasaki. 97. There was an intermediate type called the compound turbine which combined both turbines. For the first paper on this type by C. A. Parsons, see Parsons ‘The application of the compound steam turbine’. 98. Kozo Yokoyama, ‘Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company Ltd Rateau tarubin ni kansuru Inagaki gishi no hokoku ni tsuite’ (On Mr Inagaki’s technical report on the Rateau turbine produced by the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company Ltd), 15 July 1920, Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives, Nagasaki. 99. Ibid. 100. Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Gakkai Hakuyo Kikan Chosa Kenkyu Iinkai (RCMESJ) (ed.) ‘Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Joki Tabin Hen Soko’ (An unpublished manuscript of the history of marine engineering in Japan: the steam turbine), n.d., Kaigun Hen, appended table 2.3.1. The company purchased the right of licensed production of the Zölly turbine in 1921. 101. Yokoyama, ‘Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company Ltd Rateau tarubin’, 15 July 1920. 102. Mitsubishi Zosen, Sogyo Hyakunen no Nagasaki Zosenjo (A centenary history of the Nagasaki Shipyard), Tokyo, 1957, appendix: the list of main products 3; RCMESJ (ed.) ‘Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Joki Tabin Hen Soko’ (Manuscript of the history of marine engineering in Japan), Minkan Hen, appended tables. 103. Although Itaka metal was not adopted by the turbines produced at Navy arsenals due to the development by the Navy of its own new metals made around the time, it provided the first stage in the replacement of imported Monel metal by self-reliant technologies independently developed by the private sector. For the development of the Navy’s own new metals for turbine blades, see RCMESJ (ed.) ‘Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Joki Tabin Hen Soko’ (Manuscript of the history of marine engineering in Japan), Kaigun Hen, 2.2.14. 104. There is no connection here with the use of these concepts in the classical structural-functional theory in sociology which underlines the importance of functional aspects in the maintenance and change of structure of society. 105. See Mitsubishi Zosen, Sogyo Hyakunen no Nagasaki Zosenjo (History of the Nagasaki Shipyard), appendix: list of main products 1–7. 106. As mentioned earlier, Mitsubishi had more financial capital than the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company, who supplied the original marine steam turbines. 107. For the general background of Mitsubishi Zaibatsu, see Wray, Mitsubishi and the NYK, and others. 108. Nakanishi, Nihon Kindaika no Kiso Katei (Emergence of a modern Japanese enterprise), vol. 2, p. 644.

208 Notes 109. See, for example, Takeshi Hayashi, Tetsuro Nakaoka, Tadashi Ishii and Hoshimi Uchida, Kindai Nihon no Gijutsu to Gijutsu Seisaku (Technology and technology policy in modern Japan) (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1986), pp. 3–106; Masaaki Kobayashi, Nihon no Kogyoka to Kangyo Haraisage (Japanese industrialization and the transfer of the government factories to private companies) (Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Shinpo Sha, 1977), pp. 121–7, and others. 110. Accordingly, Japanese success in industrialization must be reconsidered from the viewpoint of a parallel industrialization, with private companies playing a unique and independent role in transferring, assimilating, and producing new technologies, in addition to the well-known role in implementing infrastructures already established by the governmental sector, including the military one. For a case study based upon the dual viewpoint, see Miwao Matsumoto, ‘Reconsidering Japanese industrialization’, Technology and Culture, vol. 40, no. 1 (1999), pp. 74–97. For an introductory history of technology in Japan for Western readers, see Tessa Morris-Suzuki, The Technological Transformation of Japan: From the Seventeenth to the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Technological learning in the prewar period is discussed in relation to Mitsubishi in Yukiko Fukasaku, Technology and Industrial Development in Pre-war Japan: Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, 1884–1934 (London: Routledge, 1992). For a study on the transformation of the Fukoku Kyohei policy in Japan from 1868 to the 1990s, see Richard J. Samuels, ‘Rich Nation Strong Army’: National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994).

5 ‘Spin-off’ in the Nationalization of R&D: The Recasting of the British System in an Industrializing Japan 1. W. H. White, ‘On the establishment of an experimental tank for research work on fluid resistance and ship propulsion’, TINA, vol. 46 (1904), pp. 39–63. (The quotation is taken from a statement by W. H. White in the appended discussion of his paper, ibid., p. 62.) 2. A supplementary note at the end of the discussion, ibid., p. 63. 3. Ibid., p. 42. 4. William Denny, ‘On local education in naval architecture’, TINA, vol. 22 (1881), pp. 144–65. 5. Ibid. 6. White, ‘On the establishment of an experimental tank’, pp. 41–2. 7. Ibid. Also see National Physical Laboratory Collected Researches, vol. 6 (1910), pp. 35–48. 8. The quotations are taken from White’s statements in the appended discussion of his paper, in White, ‘On the establishment of an experimental tank’, p. 61. 9. Ibid., p. 40. 10. The quotation is taken from White’s response to Mr. James Hamilton (Member of Council, the INA) in the appended discussion of his paper. Ibid., p. 61. 11. White’s estimate given at the discussion, ibid., pp. 61–2. 12. The quotation is taken from the words of R. T. Glazebrook, the director of the NPL, in White, ‘On the establishment of an experimental tank’, p. 54. For the initial idea in setting up the NPL, see ‘The establishment of a National Physical Laboratory’, The Electrician, 7 October (1898), pp. 778–80. 13. White, ‘On the establishment of an experimental tank’, p. 54. For a brief general history of the NPL, see Edward Pyatt, The National Physical Laboratory: A History (Bristol: Adam Hilger, 1983).

Notes 209 14. White, ‘On the establishment of an experimental tank’, p. 62. 15. National Physical Laboratory, Report for the Year, 1909, p. 10. 16. The description is based on National Physical Laboratory Collected Researches, vol. 6 (1910), pp. 35–48. 17. The description is based on the National Physical Laboratory, Report for the Year, 1909, appendix 2, p. 103; Report for the Year, 1910, p. 88; Report for the Year, 1911. The first members of the committee were: Horace Darwin, FRS, Robert E. Froude, FRS, A. B. Kempe, Treasurer of the Royal Society, W. J. Luke, W. H. Maw, J. T. Milton, Lord Rayleigh, OM, FRS, W. E. Smith, CB, S. J. P. Thearle, Sir William H. White, KCB, FRS, A. F. Yarrow. See National Physical Laboratory, Report for the Year, 1909, p. 11, footnote. 18. In fact, the technological and industrial progress of other countries was one of the most influential factors that made Britain investigate institutional structures for promotion and utilization of science and technology on the European continent in the second half of the nineteenth century. See Second Report of the Royal Commissioners on Technical Instruction, vol. 1 (London, 1884), p. 540. However, the effort seems not to have stimulated effective support for such R&D as a national experimental tank. Despite Britain’s original pioneering of tank experiments, R. T. Glazebrook, the director of the NPL, was obliged to visit the Berlin tank and the Paris tank, and so on, to get information on the latest design and management for the construction of the NPL tank. See National Physical Laboratory Collected Researches, vol. 6 (1910), pp. 39–48. For a general background of the relation of the application of physical scale modelling to engineering problems around the time when the pioneering Torquay tank was set up, see Thomas Wright, ‘Scale models, similitude and dimensions: aspects of mid-nineteenthcentury engineering science’, Annals of Science, vol. 49, no. 3 (1992), pp. 233–54. 19. Kyoji Suehiro, ‘Minato teishin gishi ga zosen kyokai sokai sekijo nite kokuritsu senpaku kenkyujo setsuritsu no kyumu naru o noberareshi ori no kamei no toron’ (Discussion of Mr. Minato’s paper proposing the establishment of a national research institute for shipbuilding, read at the general meeting of the Shipbuilding Association), Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 48 (1921), pp. 183–6. 20. Kazuma Minato, ‘Kogyoteki kenkyu kikan ni tsuite’ (On an industrial research institute), Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 48 (1921), pp. 156–80. Minato later became the director of the experimental tank run by the Ministry of Communications in 1932. 21. Ibid. 22. Rinji Zaisei Keizai Chosa Kai, Rinji Zaisei Keizai Chosa Kai Gijiroku (Minutes of ad hoc Investigation Committee on Finance and Economy), no. 16 (kept in National Archives Office), appended materials of 14 February 1921. 23. See Minato, ‘Kogyoteki kenkyu kikan ni tsuite’ (On an industrial research institute). The earliest move of the association towards the construction of the experimental tank dates back to 1906. In February of that year, Noriyoshi Akamatsu, the president of the association, submitted a proposal for construction to the government based on advice from F. P. Purvis, a British teacher employed by the Imperial University. 24. Suehiro, ‘Minato teishin gishi’ (Discussion of Mr Minato’s paper). 25. Minato’s statement at the discussion of his paper, in Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 48 (1921), p. 182. As far as education in Japan is concerned, Suehiro’s view might still have relevance today. 26. Ibid., p. 186. 27. Ibid., p. 194.

210 Notes 28. The Report of the ad hoc Investigation Committee on Finance and Economy (Rinji Zaisei Keizai Chosa Kai) Rinji Zaisei Keizai Chosa Kai Gijiroku (Minutes of) in reply to the question no. 4 ‘Zosengyo no Iji Hattatsu ni kansuru Konpon Hoshin Ikan’ (What should be the fundamental policy for maintaining and developing the shipbuilding industry?), item 4, A-7. Collected in Dai Ichiji Taisen Keizai Shakai Seisaku Shiryo Shu (Collection of reprinted materials relating to economic and social policies after the First World War), vol. 1 (Tokyo: Kashiwashobo, 1987), p. 211. 29. Teishin Sho Kaiji Iinkai (Maritime Administration Committee, the Ministry of Communications), ‘Kaiungyo oyobi Zosengyo no Iji Hatten ni kansuru Hosaku’ (Measures to be taken for the development of shipping and shipbuilding industries), section 2, item 5 ‘Senpaku Kenkyu Shisetsu no Seibi’ (Improvement of ship research facilities), Collection of miscellaneous public records (Kobun Zassan), vol. 34 (1922) (kept by the National Archives Office). 30. ‘Senpaku Shikenjo Kinen Shi’ (A commemorative publication on the history of the National Ship Experimental Tank) (Tokyo: for private distribution, 1956), pp. 6–7. 31. Mitsubishi Jukogyo Nagasaki Kenkyujo Gijutsu Hokoku (Technical report of the Nagasaki Research Institute of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Company), no. 33 (1968), p. 21. 32. Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 48 (1921), p. 194. More specifically, there was also the following realization peculiar to the period after the First World War, which seems to have contributed to the ‘trend’: ‘Hurried construction of many ships set back the net progress of shipbuilding technology in Japan.’ Rinji Zaisei Keizai Chosa Kai) Rinji Zaisei Keizai Chosa Kai Gijiroku (Minutes of the Report of the ad hoc Investigation Committee on Finance and Economy) in reply to the question no. 4 ‘Zosengyo no Iji Hattatsu ni kansuru Konpon Hoshin Ikan’ (What should be the fundamental policy for maintaining and developing the shipbuilding industry?), item 1, A-2 ‘Zosen Gijutsu’ (Shipbuilding technology), 14 February 1922, p. 54. Collected in Dai Ichiji Taisen Keizai Shakai Seisaku Shiryo Shu (Collection of reprinted materials relating to economic and social policies), p. 203. 33. It is also possible to perceive here the increasing influence of the middle class on science and technology since the mid-eighteenth century compared with earlier period when science and technology, particularly science, tended to be a pastime mostly for the upper class (the nobility). See, for example, N. Hans, New Trends in Education in the 18th Century (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951), pp. 32–3. 34. For the Literary and Philosophical Society, see, for example, R. E. Schofield, The Lunar Society of Birmingham: A Social History of Provincial Science and Industry in 18th Century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963); N. McKendrich, ‘The role of science in the industrial revolution: a study of Josiah Wedgewood as a scientist and industrial chemist’, in M. Teich and R. Young (eds) Changing Perspectives in the History of Science: Essays in Honour of J. Needham (London: Heinemann, 1973), pp. 275–319; Arnold Thackray, ‘Natural knowledge in cultural context: the Manchester model’, American Historical Review, vol. 79, no. 3 (1974), pp. 672–709; J. B. Morrell, ‘Individualism and the structure of British science in 1830’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, vol. 3 (1971), pp. 183–204. For scientific chairs created by various research institutes, see, for example, T. Martin, ‘Origins of the Royal Institution’, British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 1 (1962), pp. 49–63; M. Berman, Social Change and Scientific Organization: The Royal Institution, 1799–1844 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978); M. L. Cooper and V. M. D. Hall, ‘W. Robert Grave and the London Institution, 1841–1845’, Annals of Science, vol. 39, no. 3 (1982), pp. 229–54. For the British Association for the Advancement

Notes 211

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40. 41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

of Science, see, for example, O. J. R. Howarth, The British Association for the Advancement of Science: A Retrospect 1831–1931 (London: British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1931); A. D. Orange, ‘The British Association for the Advancement of Science: the provincial background’, Science Studies, vol. 1 (1971), pp. 315–29; Roy MacLeod and Peter Collins (eds) The Parliament of Science: The British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831–1981 (Northwood, Middlesex: Science Reviews, 1981). For professional societies in a specific field, there are too many references to be given here. The Institution of Naval Architects in Britain will be considered in comparison with the Shipbuilding Association in Japan below. For an outline, see Chapter 1. For a comprehensive study of these different groups for science and technology until the mid-nineteenth century, see J. B. Morrell and A. Thackray, Gentlemen of Science (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981). For a work on the professionalization process in England, see William J. Reader, Professional Men: The Rise of the Professional Classes in 19th Century England (London: Basic, 1966). For a classical general description of the process by sociologists, see, for example, Geoffrey Millerson, The Qualifying Association: A Study in Professionalisation (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964). See Charles Babbage, Reflections on the Decline of Science in England and on Some of its Causes (London: B. Fellowes, 1830), p. 10; idem, The Exposition of 1851 (London: John Murray, 1851), p. 189. See Tadashi Yoshida, ‘Japanese encounter with Western science’, paper presented at the International Institute for Advanced Study Symposium ‘Translatability of Culture’, 9–11 September 1991, Kyoto. Of course, how to evaluate the revisions and transformations forms another question. It seems incontrovertible that the transfer had little impact on Japanese industrialization. In general, knowledge production depends on its setting. The setting further depends on particular social backgrounds which select feasible settings. The social backgrounds include ways of life, ‘definition of situation’, value systems, and rules (formal or informal) which govern scientists, engineers and their communities, and their interaction with industrial society. Since scientists generally lack a particular group of clients in the wider society they belong to, the process of the professionalization of science was fairly haphazard. For a standard work on the haphazard process of the professionalization of science in England, see D. S. L. Cardwell, The Organization of Science in England (London: Heinemann, rev. edn, 1972). TINA, vol. 1 (1860), p. xi. Zosen Kyokai Kisoku (Articles of the Shipbuilding Association), Clause 2, Clause 3. Also see Zosen Kyokai Nenpo (Annual Report of the Shipbuilding Association), no. 1 (1897), p. 4. TINA, vol. 1 (1860), p. xiii. Zosen Kyokai Kisoku (Annual Report of the Shipbuilding Association Articles of the Shipbuilding Association), Clause 59, Clause 61. ‘William Froude’, Nature, 12 June (1879), pp. 148–50. See Charles A. Parsons, ‘The application of the compound steam turbine to the purpose of marine propulsion’, TINA, vol. 38 (1897), pp. 232–42. Besides civil engineers, we can even find various engineers specializing in manufacturing arms and ammunition, such as Masatoshi Okochi who became an Associate of the association in 1907 and later became the director of Physical and Chemical Research (Rikagaku Kenkyujo) in 1921. See Zosen Kyokai Kaiho (The Journal of the Shipbuilding Association), no. 6 (1908), Minutes of General Meeting,

212 Notes

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

p. 2. The first president, Noriyoshi Akamatsu, was a retired Navy official and became a member of the Upper House (Kizoku In) in the same year as the association was set up. ‘Scheme for the Constitution of an Advisory Tank Committee and for the Working of the National Experimental Tank’, National Physical Laboratory, Report for the Year, 1909, appendix 2, p. 103. As shown in Table 5.3, the Mejiro tank came under the control of the Ship Administration Bureau of the Ministry of Communications from the outset. This control of the government organization goes back to 1916 when the Ship Equipment Testing Office (Fune Yohin Kensajo), the predecessor of the Mejiro tank, was set up. On 8 July 1916, the government department was revised by Imperial Ordinance No. 177 to set up the office under the control of the Ship Administration Bureau. It was not until the middle of wartime mobilization that the Mejiro tank became independent of the bureau in terms of its organizational standing. On 18 December 1941, ten days after the declaration of war with the US and Britain, the tank became independent of the control of the bureau and came under the direct control of the Minister of Communications. After the initial problem of nationalization was solved through these measures, the national tank was transferred to governmental control as the NPL came under the control of the Privy Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in 1917. The governmental sectors of the day too had little sense of ‘rewards for services’ offered to the private sector. According to Akio Yamagata who became the director of the Mejiro tank in 1940, even after the start of these services, fees required from the private sector were kept extraordinarily inexpensive in consideration of national policy for improving the quality of domestically produced ships. See Akio Yamagata, ‘Senkei shiken 10 nen o kataru’ (The 10 years history of the Mejiro tank), Mota Shippu, vol. 10, no. 4 (1937), pp. 268–73. Although commonsense concepts are intellectually appealing and often useful to the understanding of societies, the dichotomy has little explanatory power in this context. For work calling attention to general pitfalls associated with the use of these concepts in sociology, see, for example, Steven M. Lukes, Individualism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973); Hiroshi Hazama, Igirisu no Shakai to Roshikankei: Hikaku Shakaigakuteki Kosatsu (Industrial relations in British society: a comparative sociological consideration) (Tokyo: Nihon Rodo Kyokai, 1974), and others. Generally, the form and nature of rules vary from one society to another. For example, rules tended to take a written form in modern Japan, whereas they tended to be often unwritten in Britain (for example, common law). Symbolically, it is well known that the transfer of common law to Japan failed, though not every unwritten rule is identical with common law. For this, see Rikizo Uchida, ‘Kindai nihon to eibei ho’ (Modern Japan and Anglo-American law), Jurisuto, no. 600 (1975), pp. 12–23. As late as May 1901 when the Select Committee on Steamship Subsidies was set up, ‘The committee preferred competition to subsidies’ (Sidney Pollard and Paul Robertson, The British Shipbuilding Industry: 1870–1914, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979, p. 224.) It is true that ‘although many aspects of British shipbuilding were unregulated, the state did to some extent help to ensure the continuing viability of the industry’ (ibid., p. 229). As far as state subsidies are concerned, however, they were ‘given rather shamefacedly’ (ibid., p. 223). By contrast, Japan openly enacted both the shipbuilding and shipping promotion laws in 1896, the two main subsidy policies of the government for shipbuilding and

Notes 213

54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59.

60.

shipping industries. After the enactment, the focus of the government’s financial policy for shipbuilding and shipping industries had further shifted from general to specific support such as a navigation subsidy, long-term cheap credit for shipbuilding and import duty on foreign built ships. Around the time the Mejiro tank was completed, particular stress was placed on the promotion of domestic production of high-performance ships and their protection from international competition. See Rinji Zaisei Keizai Chosa Kai, Rinji Zaisei Keizai Chosa Kai Gijiroku (Minutes of the Report of the ad hoc Investigation Committee on Finance and Economy) in reply to the question no. 4 (14 February 1922). Requests calling for direct and indirect protection of the shipbuilding industry still remained in Japan later on. See, for example, Junichiro Imaoka, ‘Zosen shinko ni kansuru seisaku to keiei ni tsuite’ (‘Policy and management for the promotion of shipbuilding’), an opinion submitted to Teikoku Keizai Kaigi Kogyo Bukai (Industry Section, Imperial Economic Council) in April 1925. Collected in Dai Ichiji Taisen Keizai Shakai Seisaku Shiryo Shu (Collection of reprinted materials relating to economic and social policies after the First World War), vol. 5, pp. 100–7. Teishin Koho (Gazette of the Ministry of Communications), no. 267 (21 November 1927), pp. 1341–2. For the stipulation of fees for the use of the Mejiro tank, see Senpaku Shikenjo Kinen Shi (A commemorative publication on the history of the National Ship Experimental Tank) (Tokyo: for private distribution, 1956), pp. 81–3. It is unthinkable that in working out this prescription everyone was ignorant of the status of the NPL tank, since in the year following the completion of the NPL tank, full information on the tank had already been published in the oldest engineering journal in Japan. See Fuji Tanaka, ‘Eikoku kokuritsu rigaku kenkyujo ni tsuite’ (‘On the National Physical Laboratory’), Kogaku Kaishi, vol. 354 (1912), pp. 389–443. On the financial statements of the early years of the NPL, see National Physical Laboratory, Report for the Year, 1901–08, Report of the Executive Committee. Also see R. Moseley, ‘The origins and early years of the National Physical Laboratory: a chapter in the pre-history of British science policy’, Minerva, vol. 16, no. 2 (1978), pp. 221–50. National Physical Laboratory, Report for the Year, 1909, appendix 2, p. 103. Interpolation is by the author. Ibid., 1910, pp. 88–92; 1911, pp. 88–90; 1912, pp. 113–15. See ibid., 1912–20. As far as the control of behaviour is concerned, this culture has something to do with general expectations. However, in two respects, the culture in this context is different from norm used in the sociology of science and technology. First, it concerns both individual and group behaviour, whereas norm is mainly concerned with individual behaviour. Second, its extension covers ‘the interaction between the behaviours of individual scientists/engineers and their groups, and other subgroups in industrial society’, whereas the extension of norm has been mainly confined to the interaction between scientists alone. ‘Folkways’ in sociology might fit better with the usage of culture here. See William G. Sumner, Folkways: A Study of the Social Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores and Morals (Boston: Ginn, 1907), ch. 1. In a stricter sense, there is even a view that culture is almost impossible to transfer. See William F. Ogburn, Social Change: With Respect to Culture and Original Nature (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1922), esp. p. 200ff. For an extreme standpoint claiming the strictest distinction of culture from other social forms, see Alfred Weber, ‘Prinzipielles zur Kultursoziologie (Gesellschaftsprozess, Zivilisationsprozess

214 Notes

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

6

und Kulturbewegung)’, Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, band. 47 (1920), s. 1–49. For a classical overview on the point by a sociologist, see Robert Merton, ‘Civilization and culture’, Sociology and Social Research, vol. 21 (1936), pp. 103–13. Teishin Sho Kaiji Iinkai (Maritime Administration Committee), ‘Kaiungyo oyobi Zosengyo no Iji Hatten nikansuru Hosaku’ (Policies for the development of shipbuilding and shipping industries), section 2. Zosengyo no Iji ni kansuru Hosaku (Policies for the development of shipbuilding industry), item 5. Senpaku Kenkyu Shisetsu no Seibi (Improvement of ship research facilities), Kobun Zassan (Collection of Public Records), vol. 34 (1922). Rules of the latter type tend to survive without respect to the purposes they were initially designed for. The phenomenon has been usually called reification within a more general formulation of a sociological theory. See Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (New York: Anchor, 1967), and others. In traditional and current usage in the social history of science and technology, ‘institutionalization’ in this broad sense and ‘professionalization’ as defined in Chapter 1 have not been conceptually distinguished, the origin of which goes back to J. D. Bernal. See, for example, J. D. Bernal, The Social Function of Science (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1939), esp. pp. 1–15. ‘Triple-branching’ here means that the hierarchical authority given to respective roles of every employee was defined based on three types of rules having different scopes, which produced a branching structure. ‘Single-branching’, on the other hand, means that the authority given to respective roles of every employee was defined based on rules of a single type, which produced a non-branching structure. This point will be interpreted, together with the point made in Chapter 4, within the structure and function of the ship revolution in Chapter 6.

Conclusion: Beyond Success or Failure

1. Other foreign papers are as follows (in order of appearance in the proceedings): Mason S. Chace (US), ‘Results of experimental tank tests on models of submarines’; A. Rateau (France), ‘The rational application of turbines to the propulsion of warships’; O. Schlick (Germany), ‘Our present knowledge of the vibration phenomena of steamers’; Frank E. Kirby (US), et al., ‘Shipping on the Great Lakes’; J. Johnson (Sweden), ‘Recent developments in the sea transportation of Swedish ore’; O. Flamm (Germany), ‘The scientific study of naval architecture in Germany’; L. A. Marbec (France), ‘Notes on the collapsing of curved beams and curved elastic strips’; G. Russo (Italy), ‘Fifty years of progress in shipbuilding in Italy’. See TINA, vol. 53, pt 2 (1911). 2. Ibid. As Kondo could not attend the congress, his paper was read by S. Nonaka, Constructor-Commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy. 3. Ibid., p. 148. 4. For a standard work by sociologists on ambivalence, see Robert K. Merton, Sociological Ambivalence and Other Essays (New York: Free Press, 1976). For example, in addition to the remarks quoted above, William H. White called the development of merchant shipbuilding in Japan ‘a most marvellous story’ and drew the attention of his audience to its rapidity by saying as follows: ‘I do not know whether it has been appreciated that this mercantile fleet has been created since 1894.’ (This is the year when the Sino-Japanese War started, after which the domestic production of large-scale merchant steamers began to be promoted by government policies, as described in Chapter 3. There was only one home-built

Notes 215

5.

6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24.

25.

steamer of more than 1000 gross tons – the Kosugemaru, built at Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard in 1883 – before 1894.) See TINA, vol. 53, pt 2 (1911), p. 147. Junkichi Ishikawa, Kokka Sodoin Shi (History of the wartime mobilization), 13 vols (Tokyo: Kokka Sodoin Shi Kanko Kai, 1975–1987), Volume of source materials 3 (1975), pp. 412–14. The descriptions are based on ibid., pp. 486–7. For this, see Chikayoshi Kamatani, ‘Daiichiji taisen to kogyo gijutsu no shinko saku’ (The First World War and the promotion of industrial technology in Japan), Kagaku Shi Kenkyu, no. 15 (1981), pp. 13–28. Annual Report of the JSPS (Nihon Gakujutsu Shinkokai Nenpo), no. 1 (1934). Ibid. Gakujutsu Sangyo Shinko In Setsuritsu Shuisho An (The draft prospectus of the JSPS), May 1932 (kept by the JSPS). Gakujutsu Sangyo Shinko In Keikaku An (Draft prospectus of the JSPS), May 1932. The descriptions are based on Gakujutsu Sangyo Shinko In no Keiei narabini Jigyo ni kansuru Setsumeisho An (Draft description of activities of the JSPS), May 1932 (kept by the JSPS). See Tetsu Hiroshige, Kagaku no Shakai Shi: Kindai Nihon no Kagaku Taisei (The social history of science: the social institution of science in modern Japan) (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1973), pp. 115–23. For the notice of the Imperial Grant, see the Osata (Instruction) from the Minister of the Imperial Household to the Minister of Education on 20 August 1932 (kept by the JSPS). Hiroshige, Kagaku no Shakai Shi, p. 123. Annual Report of the JSPS, no. 4 (1937), p. 60. See Annual Report of the JSPS, no. 1 (1934) – no. 12/13 (1947). In the Kokusaku Kenkyu Kai Monjo kept by the University of Tokyo Library archives. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. For this, see Shoichi Oyodo, Miyamoto Takenosuke to Kagaku Gijutsu Gyosei (Takenosuke Miyamoto and the Administration of Science and Technology) (Tokyo: Tokai Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1989), based on a diary of Takenosuke Miyamoto who was deputy chief of the Agency of Planning and died just before the setting up of the Board of Technology on 24 December 1941. In the Kokusaku Kenkyu Kai Monjo kept by the University of Tokyo Library archives. Well before this, there were various arguments about the transfer of central government organizations to the Board of Technology. As far as we are able to confirm, based on official documents kept by Kokusaku Kenkyukai archives, there are at least three different top secret documents that prove this. See Gijutsuin Sosetsu niatari Ikan subeki Jiko ni kansuru Ken (On how to transfer the business of other ministries to the Board of Technology) (n.d.); Gijutsuin Sosetsu niatari Ikan subeki Jiko ni kansuru Oboegaki (A memorandum on how to transfer the business of other ministries to the Board of Technology) (29 May 1941); Gijutsuin Sosetsu niatari Ikan subeki Jiko (Business to be transferred to the Board of Technology from other ministries) (7 August 1941). The Board of Technology controlled four extra-governmental organizations that had a close connection with the industrial sector: the Imperial Association for

216 Notes Invention (Teikoku Hatsumei Kyokai), the Association for the Mobilization of Science (Kagaku Doin Kyokai), the Japanese Association for Aeronautics (Dainippon Koku Gijutsu Kyokai), and the Japanese Association of Scientific and Technological Societies (Zennihon Kagaku Gijutsu Dantai Rengokai). See Gijutsu In Gaikaku Dantai Ichiran (List of extra-governmental organizations of the Board of Technology), 20 December 1943 (kept by the Library of the Department of Economics, University of Tokyo). The last organization became famous for its contribution to the promotion of so-called Japanese quality control in the postwar period. 26. In the Kokusaku Kenkyu Kai Monjo, kept by the University of Tokyo Library archives. For the pressure from the Army and the resultant transformation of the Board of Technology, see, for example, Masakatsu Yamazaki, ‘Wagakuni ni okeru dainiji sekai taisenki kagaku gijutsu doin: Inoue Tatashiro monjo ni motozuku Gijutsu In no tenkai katei’ (The wartime mobilization of science and technology in Japan during the Second World War: the development of the Board of Technology based on the Inoue Tadashiro Archives), Tokyo Kogyo Daigaku Jinbun Ronshu, no. 20 (1995), pp. 171–82; Minoru Sawai, ‘Kagakugijutsu shintaisei koso no tenkai to Gijutsu In no tanjo’ (The development of the plan for science and technology renovation and the Board of Technology) Osaka Daigaku Keizaigaku, vol. 41, no. 2/3 (1991), pp. 367–95. 27. The statements by Yagi are based on the Report on Scientific Intelligence Survey in Japan, 1945, vol. 3 (GHQ/SCAP Records Box no. 8354 ESS (1)-00727), appendix 3-A-1. These are Yagi’s words on 11 September 1945 when interrogated by General Headquarters of US Army Forces, Pacific Scientific and Technical Advisory Section. 28. The term ‘trajectories’ here broadly indicates the patterns of change specific to a certain area of science and technology. Apart from classical diffusion studies of technology (for example, William F. Ogburn, The Social Effects of Aviation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1946), there are two contexts in which the term is used. One is neo-Schumpeterian innovation studies, in which the term is broadly understood as technological change with economic effects within a certain sector. The other is path-dependency studies, in which the term is more specifically understood as a stochastic process indicating the divergence of dominant technologies from optimum ones. As the description and analysis that follow will show, what the extension of the term employed here shares with prior usage is the incalculable and/or unanticipated nature of change to the eyes of the parties involved at a given time. For an example from neo-Schumpeterian innovation studies, see Giovanni Dosi, ‘Sources, procedures, and microeconomic effects of innovation’, Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 26, no. 3 (1988), pp. 1120–71. There are many other references relating to use of the term in this context, which are too numerous to list exhaustively here. For a few of these, see, for example, Richard Nelson and Sidney G. Winter, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982); Christopher Freeman and L. Soete (eds) New Explorations in the Economics of Technical Change (London: Pinter, 1990); Nathan Rosenberg, Exploring the Black Box: Technology, Economics, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Nick Von Tunzelmann, Technology and Industrial Progress: The Foundations of Economic Growth (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1995), and others. Studies on path-dependency originate in the following two pioneering studies: Paul A. David, ‘Clio and the economics of QWERTY’, American Economic Review, vol. 75, no. 2 (1985), pp. 332–7; W. Brian Arthur, Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy (Ann Arbor: University of

Notes 217

29.

30.

31. 32.

33.

34. 35.

Michigan Press, 1994); his original paper was published in Economic Journal, vol. 99, no. 394 (1989), pp. 116–31. For recent developments relating to these two research traditions, see, for example, John Ziman (ed.) Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Studies in the history of technology which coincided with these two research traditions can be found, for example, in George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). There are long-standing debates about the necessity of various narratives which go beyond the chronological description of technological change. For these debates, see, for example, R. Angus Buchanan, ‘Theory and narrative in the history of technology’, Technology and Culture, vol. 32 (1991), pp. 365–76; John Law, ‘Theory and narrative in the history of technology: response’, ibid., pp. 377–84; P. Scranton, ‘Theory and narrative in the history of technology: comment’, ibid., pp. 385–93. Also see Robert Fox (ed.) Technological Change: Methods and Themes in the History of Technology (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 1996). C. A. Parsons, ‘Improvements in the Mechanism for Propelling and Controlling Steam Vessels’, Patent Record No. 394, AD 1894 (kept by Tyne and Wear Archives Service in Newcastle upon Tyne). As for the procession of events before 1884, see W. Garrett Scaife, ‘Charles Parsons’ experiments with rocket torpedoes: the precursors of the steam turbine’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society for the Study of the History of Engineering and Technology, vol. 60 (1991), pp. 17–29. For a brief history of steam turbine development, see H. W. Dickinson, A Short History of the Steam Engine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938), chs 11–14. A standard work by D. S. L. Cardwell on the modern history of steam power and thermodynamics paid, unfortunately, virtually no attention to the advent of the steam turbine. See D. S. L. Cardwell, From Watt to Clausius: The Rise of Thermodynamics in the Early Industrial Age (London: Heinemann, 1971). Comprehensive analyses of the worldwide turbine development trajectory within the general context of turbojet development can be found in Edward W. Constant II, The Origin of the Turbojet Revolution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980). As mentioned in Chapter 3, Kanpon is the abbreviation of the Kansei Honbu, which means the Technical Headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Navy. For detailed description and analysis of these dual strategies of the Navy, see M. Matsumoto, ‘The Imperial Japanese Navy’s connection with a marine steam turbine transfer from the West: a sociological model of the early 20th century’, Historia Scientiarum, vol. 6, no. 3 (1997), pp. 209–27. As for a more general background of the relation between the Navy and private companies, see M. Matsumoto, ‘Le jeu des rôles autour d’une turbine à vapeur’, Les Cahiers de Science & Vie, no. 41 (Octobre, 1997), pp. 80–90. The above descriptions are based on Ryutaro Shibuya, ‘Kyu Kaigun Gijutsu Shiryo’ (Technical documents of the Imperial Japanese Navy) (Tokyo: Association for Production Technologies, for private distribution, 1970), vol. 1, ch. 4; Shun Murata, ‘Asashio Gata Shu Tabin no Jiko (An accident of the main turbines of the Asashio-class)’, manuscript (n.d.), p. 6. Shibuya, ‘Technical documents of the Imperial Japanese Navy’, pp. 133–4. For details of this first Kanpon type turbine, see Chapter 3. Also see Hakuyo Kikan Gakkai Hakuyo Kikan Chosa Kenkyu Iinkai (Research Committee of the Marine Engineering Society of Japan) (ed.) ‘Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Joki Tabin Hen Soko’ (An unpublished manuscript of the history of marine engineering in Japan: the steam turbine), n.d., appended tables.

218 Notes 36. Japan Shipbuilding Society (ed.) Showa Zosen Shi (The history of shipbuilding in the showa period) (Tokyo: Hara Shobo, 1977), vol. 1, p. 668. 37. Michizo Sendo et al., Zokan Gijutsu no Zenbo (A conspectus of warship construction technology) (Tokyo: Koyosha, 1952), pp. 247–9. 38. Masanori Ito, Dai Kaigun o Omou (On the Japanese Imperial Navy) (Tokyo: Bungei Sunju Sha, 1956), pp. 439–40. 39. War History Unit, National Defence College of the Defence Agency (ed.) Kaigun Gunsenbi (1) (Military equipment of the Navy, part 1) (Tokyo: Choun Shinbunsha, 1969), pp. 621–2. 40. Japan Shipbuilding Society (ed.) Showa Zosen Shi (History of Shipbuilding), vol. 1, pp. 668–9. 41. Institute for the Compilation of Historical Records relating to the Japanese Imperial Navy (ed.) Kaigun (The Navy), vol. 9 (Tokyo: Seibun Tosho, 1981), p. 161. 42. The Tomozuru incident of 11 March 1934 was the first major one in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Only a year and a half after this incident, a more serious one occurred on 26 September 1935 – the Fourth Squadron incident. 43. Based on interviews by the present author with Dr Seikan Ishigai (on 4 September 1987; 2 June 1993) and with Dr Yasuo Takeda (on 25 September 1996; 19 March 1997). 44. The purpose of this treaty was to restrict the total displacement of all types of naval vessels other than battleships and battle cruisers, while that of the Washington naval disarmament treaty of 1922 was to restrict the total displacement of battleships and battle cruisers, as mentioned in Chapter 4. This London treaty obliged the Imperial Japanese Navy to produce a new idea in hull design enabling heavy weapons to be installed within a small hull, which, however, was achieved at the expense of the strength and stability of the hull, as the incident dramatically showed. 45. Kaigun Daijin Kanbo Rinji Chosa Ka (Temporary Research Section, the Minister of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Secretariat, abbreviated to TRS hereafter) (ed.) Teikoku Gikai Kaigun Kankei Giji Sokki Roku (Minutes of Imperial Diet Sessions regarding Navy-related subjects), Bekkan 1, 2 (reprinted edn, Tokyo: Hara Shobo, 1984), vol. 3, pt 1, p. 86. 46. The damage due to the collision between the cruisers Abukuma and Kitakami in terms of contemporary currency is based on the above-mentioned answer by the Navy Minister Kiyotane Anbo to a question by Viscount Tanetada Tachibana made on 2 March 1931 during the 59th Imperial Diet Session. TRS, Minutes of Imperial Diet Sessions, vol. 1, pt 2, p. 831. 47. R. Shibuya, ‘Jugo Zuihitsu’ (Essays), sono 4 (n.d.), Shibuya archives. 48. The description of the background of the Shibuya archives is based on Shibuya Bunko Chosa Iinkai, Shibuya Bunko Mokuroku (Catalogue of the Shibuya archives), March 1995, commentary. 49. Minister of the Navy’s Secretariat, Military Secret no. 266, issued on 19 January 1938. 50. Based on the Rinkicho Report, Top Secret no. 35, issued on 2 November 1938, appended sheets. 51. This classification assumes that if a problem at one location produces another problem at another location, the latter problem is not counted separately, but is considered as part of the former. 52. Rinkicho Report, Top Secret no. 35, issued on 2 November 1938. 53. Rinkicho Report, Top Secret no. 1, issued on 18 February 1938.

Notes 219 54. Rinkicho Report, Top Secret no. 1, issued on 18 February 1938, to Rinkicho Report, Top Secret no. 27, issued on 13 October 1938. 55. Shibuya, Technical documents of the Imperial Japanese Navy, vol. 1, ch. 4, p. 48. 56. Rinkicho Report, Top Secret no. 1, issued on 18 February 1938. 57. Rinkicho Report, Top Secret no. 1, issued on 18 February 1938, appended tables. 58. Junkichi Ishikawa (ed.) Kokka Sodoin Shi (The history of national mobilization) (Fujisawa: Kokka Sodoin Shi Kanko Kai, 1982), compiled materials, vol. 3, p. 412. The author was in charge of drafting the national mobilization plan at the Cabinet Planning Board (Kikaku In) in the prewar period. For the Navy, war preparation updates started from August 1940. See Sanbo Honbu (ed.) Sugiyama Memo (Memorand written by Sugiyama) (reprinted Tokyo: Hara Shobo, 1967), vol. 1, pp. 93–4. Sugiyama was the Chief of the General Staff of the day. 59. Records of an interview with Yoshio Kubota made by the Seisan Gijutsu Kyokai (Association for Production Technology) on 19 March 1955; Y. Kubota, ‘85 Nen no Kaiso’ (Reminiscences of 85 years) (Tokyo: for private distribution, 1981), pp. 50–1. 60. These original remedial measures are kept in the Shibuya archives. 61. The descriptions here are based on Kaigun Kansei Honbu Dai 5 Bu, ‘Rinji Kikan Chosa Iinkai Hokoku ni kansuru Shu Tabin Kaizo narabini Jikken Kenkyu ni kansuru Hokoku’ (A report on the remedy and the experimental research on the main turbines in connection with the Rinkicho Report), Bessatsu, 1 April 1943. This is the final report of the Special Examination Committee. 62. In general, such was the standard of turbine design in the prewar period. Cf., Katsutada Sezawa, ‘Vibrations of a group of turbine blades’, Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 50 (1932), pp.197–206; S. J. Pigott, ‘Some special features of the SS Queen Mary’, Engineering, vol. 143 (1937), pp. 387–90; ‘Turbine-blade fa tigue testing’, Mechanical Engineering, vol. 62, no. 12 (1940), pp. 919–21; S. J. Pigott, ‘The engineering of highly powered ships’, Engineer, vol. 170 (1940), pp. 410–12, and others. 63. Kaigun Kansei Honbu Dai 5 Bu, Report on the remedy, op. cit. 64. Engineering Lieutenant Nozaki, ‘Tabin yoku no shindo ni kansuru kenkyu’ (A theoretical study of turbine blade vibration), 15 January 1943. Dr Yasuo Takeda discovered this document on 3 March 1997, and it was added to the Shibuya archives. 65. Kansei Ono, ‘Tabin yoku no kyosei sindo ni kansuru kinji keisan’ (An approximate calculation on the forced vibration of turbine blades), Engine Laboratory, Department of Sciences, Naval Technical Research Institute, August 1943. Dr Yasuo Takeda also found this document on 3 March 1997, and it was added to the Shibuya archives. Shigeru Mori, a contemporary Navy engineer who graduated from the Department of Physics of the Imperial University of Tokyo, seems to have tried to construct a model to grasp the mechanism, whose details are not available now. See Shigeru Mori, ‘Waga seishun’ (My youth), Shizuoka Newspaper, 29 August, 30 August, 1 September (1969). 66. The directive was originally issued on 1 May 1931, the documents of which are collected in the Shibuya archives. In interpreting this circumstantial evidence, the author is indebted to Dr Ryoichiro Araki for technical advice (personal correspondence of 10 March 1999). Also see R. Araki, ‘Joki tabin funko oyobi yoku no sekkei kosaku men chosa’ (A survey of materials on the design and processing of the nozzles and blades of the steam turbine), report submitted to the Shibuya Bunko Chosa Iinkai (Research Committee on the Shibuya archives), 7 December 1998. 67. See W. E. Trumpler, Jr, and H. M. Owens, ‘Turbine-blade vibration and strength’, Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, April (1955), pp. 337–41;

220 Notes

68. 69.

70.

71.

72.

F. Andrews and J. P. Duncan, ‘Turbine blade vibration: method of measurement and equipment developed by Brush’, Engineering, 17 August (1956), pp. 202–8; G. A. Luck and R. C. Kell, ‘Measuring turbine blade vibrations: development of barium titanate transducers’, Engineering, 31 August (1956), pp. 271–3; K. Leist, ‘An experimental arrangement for the measurement of the pressure distribution on high-speed rotating blade rows’, Transactions of the American Society of the Mechanical Engineers, April (1957), pp. 617–26; A. M. Wahl, ‘Stress distribution in rotating disks subjected to creep at elevated temperature’, Journal of Applied Mechanics, June (1957), pp. 299–305; N. J. Visser, ‘Turbine blade vibration’, VMF Review, vol. 2 (March, 1960), pp. 61–2, and others. See ‘Report on QE2 turbines’, Shipbuilding and Machinery Review, 13 March (1969), pp. 24–5. Seisan Gijutsu Kyokai (ed.) Kyu Kaigun Kantei Joki Tabin Kosho Kiroku (Record of the problems and failures of naval turbines of the Imperial Japanese Navy) (Tokyo: Seisan Gijutsu Kyokai, for private distribution, 1954, pp. 158–9. Based on Yasuo Takeda, ‘Kawaju wa Kanpon Shiki Tabin no Point o Doshite Toraetaka’ (How did the Kawasaki Heavy Industry Ltd. assimilate the points of the Kanpon type turbine?), n.d.; Kawasaki Tabin Sekkei Shiryo (Kawasaki Turbine Design Materials), Dai 2 Bu (October, 1955); Letter from Yasuo Takeda, Kawasaki Heavy Industry Ltd to Kanji Toshima, IHI (n.d.). For a general description of marine turbine development in Japan, see Shigeki Sakagami, Hakuyo Tahbin Hyakunen no Koseki (A hundred years of marine turbine development in Japan) (Osaka: Yunion Puresu, 2002). As for the detailed description and analysis of the Rinkicho failure, see M. Matsumoto, ‘A hidden pitfall in the path of prewar Japanese military technology’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society for the Study of the History of Engineering and Technology, vol. 71, no. 2 (2000), pp. 305–25. Shigeru Nakayama, ‘Science and technology in modern Japanese development’, in W. Beranek, Jr, and G. Ranis (eds) Science, Technology and Economic Development: A Historical and Comparative Study (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1978), pp. 202–32. Shin Nippon, vol. 1, no. 7 (1911), pp. 47–56.

Select Bibliography Abbreviations JSPS TINA

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Transactions of the Institute of Naval Architects

Archives, manuscripts and other unpublished materials C. A. Parsons and Company Ltd, Licences from C.A. Parsons and Company Ltd to Mitsubishi Zosen Kwaisha of Tokyo, Japan, n.d. (Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne). C. A. Parsons and Company Ltd, New Starters Book, no. 2, 10 June 1913–15 April 1919 (Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne). Early Parsons Plant to Mitsubishi, n.d. (kept by NEI Parsons, Ltd, Newcastle-upon-Tyne). Engineering Lieutenant Nozaki, ‘Tabin yoku no shindo ni kansuru kenkyu’ (A theoretical study on turbine blade vibration), 15 January 1943 (Dr Yasuo Takeda discovered this document on 3 March 1997, and it was added to the Shibuya archives). Ewing, J. A., ‘Preliminary Report on Trials of the Steamer Turbinia’, 24 April, 1897 (Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne). Gaikaku Dantai Ichiran (List of extra-governmental organizations of the Board of Technology), 20 December 1943 (Library of the Department of Economics, University of Tokyo). Gakujutsu Sangyo Shinko In Keikaku An (The draft plan of the JSPS), May 1932 (kept by the JSPS). Gakujutsu Sangyo Shinko In no Keiei narabini Jigyo ni kansuru Setsumeisho An (The draft description of activities of the JSPS), May 1932 (kept by the JSPS). Gakujutsu Sangyo Shinko In Setsuritsu Shuisho An (The draft prospectus of the JSPS), May 1932 (kept by the JSPS). Gijutsu Gakko Enkaku (The origin of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Technical School), mimeograph, December 1968 (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives, Nagasaki). Hamada, H., ‘Rateau tarubin ni kakawaru ken’ (A matter concerning the Rateau turbine), 17 July 1920 (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives, Nagasaki). Kaigun Daijin Kanbo Kiroku Ko (Record Office of the Secretary to the Navy Minister), ‘Fujii Kaigun Kikan Shokan Shintatsu’ (A foreign technical report by Engine Lieutenant-Commander Fujii, submitted to the Imperial Japanese Navy), 28 February 1899, Naval Minister Secretariat, Imperial Japanese Navy. Kaigun Daijin Kanbo Kiroku Ko (Record Office of the Secretary to the Navy Minister), ‘Meiji 39 Nen Gaikoku Chuzaiin Hokoku’ (Report from personnel stationed overseas no. 169) vol. 2 (1906), Naval Minister Secretariat, the Imperial Japanese Navy (abbreviated to Inagawa Report in the text). Kaigun Daijin Kanbo Kiroku Ko (Record Office of the Secretary to the Navy Minister), ‘Inagawa Zosen Dai Gishi Gaikoku Chuzaiin Hokoku Dai 267 Go’ (A foreign technical report no. 267 by Navy Chief Engineer Yoichi Inagawa, submitted to the Imperial Japanese Navy), 18 February 1907, Naval Minister Secretariat, the Imperial Japanese Navy. 221

222 Select Bibliography Kaigun Daijin Kanbo Kiroku Ko (Record Office of the Secretary to the Navy Minister), ‘Kawaji Kaigun Kikan Shosa Sintatsu Dai 137 Go’ (A foreign technical report no. 137 by Engine Lieutenant-Commander Kawaji, submitted to the Imperial Japanese Navy), 18 January 1910, Naval Minister Secretariat, Imperial Japanese Navy. Kaigun Daijin Kanbo Kiroku Ko (Record Office of the Secretary to the Navy Minister), ‘Kawaji Kaigun Kikan Shosa Shintatsu Dai 194 Go’ (A foreign technical report no. 194 by Engine Lieutenant-Commander Kawaji submitted to the Imperial Japanese Navy), 5 May 1910, Naval Minister Secretariat, Imperial Japanese Navy. Kaigun Kansei Honbu Dai 5 Bu, ‘Rinji Kikan Chosa Iinkai Hokoku ni kansuru Shu Tabin Kaizo narabini Jikken Kenkyu ni kansuru Hokoku’ (A report on the remedy and the experimental research on the main turbines in connection with the Rinkicho Report), Bessatsu, 1 April 1943 (Technical Research Institute, Defence Agency). Kaiun Shincho Hoho Chosa Iinkai ni okeru Shoda Heigoro Kojutsu (Materials provided by Heigoro Shoda at the Research Committee on Shipping Expansion), 6 February 1895. Kawasaki Heavy Industry Ltd, ‘Kawasaki Juko Joki Tabin Hattatsu Shi: Senzen Hen’ (A manuscript of the history of steam turbine development in Kawasaki Heavy Industry Ltd: prewar period), 1942 (kept by Dr Yasuo Takeda). Kokusaku Kenkyu Kai Archives (University of Tokyo Library). The Minister of the Navy’s Secretariat Military Secret no. 266, issued on 19 January 1938 (Shibuya archives). Mitsubishi Jukogyo Nagasaki Kenkyujo Gijutsu Hokoku (Internal Technical Report of the Nagasaki Research Institute of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Company, abbreviated as Internal Technical Report in the text), no. 15 (1966) (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives, Nagasaki). Mitsubishi Jukogyo Nagasaki Kenkyujo Gijutsu Hokoku (Internal Technical Report of the Nagasaki Research Institute of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Company, abbreviated as Internal Technical Report in the text), no. 33 (1968) (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives, Nagasaki). Mitsubishi Kogyo Gakko, Mitsubishi Kogyo Gakko Ichiran (A synopsis of the Mitsubishi Industrial School), May 1922 (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives, Nagasaki). Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo Keireki Sho (Records of curriculum vitae of employees), n.d. (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives, Nagasaki). Murata, S., ‘Asashio Gata Shu Tabin no Jiko’ (Failures of the main turbines of the Asashio-class), manuscript, n.d. (Shibuya archives). Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Gakkai Hakuyo Kikan Chosa Kenkyu Iinkai (Research Committee of the Marine Engineering Society of Japan, abbreviated to RCMESJ in the text) (ed.) ‘Nippon Hakuyo Kikan Shi Joki Tabin Hen Soko’ (An unpublished manuscript of the history of marine engineering in Japan: the steam turbine). Ono, K., ‘Tabin yoku no kyosei sindo ni kansuru kinji keisan’ (An approximate calculation on the forced vibration of turbine blades), Engine Laboratory, Department of Sciences, Naval Technical Research Institute, August 1943 (Dr Yasuo Takeda found this document on 3 March 1997, and it was added to the Shibuya archives). Osata (Instruction) from the Minister of the Imperial Household to the Minister of Education on 20 August 1932 (kept by the JSPS). Parsons, C. A., ‘Improvements in Mechanism for Propelling and Controlling Steam Vessels’, Patent Record No. 394, AD 1894 (Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne). Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company, Ltd, incorporated under the Companies Acts, ‘For Private Circulation Only: Prospectus’, 30 July 1897 (Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne).

Select Bibliography 223 Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company, Ltd, Staff Attendance Book, no. 1, Weeks ended 12 October 1898–25 December 1901 (Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne). Records of an interview with Yoshio Kubota made by the Seisan Gijutsu Kyokai (Association for Production Technology) on 19 March 1955 (Shibuya archives). Report on Scientific Intelligence Survey in Japan, 1945, vol. III (GHQ/SCAP Records Box no. 8354 ESS (1)-00727), Appendix 3-A-1. Rinji Zaisei Keizai Chosa Kai, Rinji Zaisei Keizai Chosa Kai Gijiroku (Minutes of ad hoc Investigation Committee on Finance and Economy), no. 16, appended materials of 14 February 1921 (National Archives Office). Rinkicho Report, Top Secret no. 1, issued on 18 February 1938 (Shibuya archives). Rinkicho Report, Top Secret no. 27, issued on 13 October 1938 (Shibuya archives). Rinkicho Report, Top Secret no. 35, issued on 2 November 1938 (Shibuya archives). Shibuya, R., ‘Jugo Zuihitsu’ (Essays), sono 4, n.d. (Shibuya archives). Shoko Ofuku (Documents of correspondence), 1884, Ko Go (University of Tokyo Archives). ‘Sir Charles Parsons’ Steam Yacht, Turbinia’, n.d. (Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne). Takeda, Y., ‘Kawaju wa Kanpon Shiki Tabin no Point o Doshite Toraetaka’ (How did the Kawasaki Heavy Industry Ltd grasp the points of the Kanpon type turbine?), n.d.; Kawasaki Tabin Sekkei Shiryo (Kawasaki turbine design materials), Dai 2 Bu, October 1955 (kept by Dr Yasuo Takeda). Teishin Sho Kaiji Iinkai (The Maritime Administration Committee, the Ministry of Communications), ‘Kaiungyo oyobi Zosengyo no Iji Hatten ni kansuru Hosaku’ (Measures to be taken for the development of shipping and shipbuilding industries), section 2, item 5 ‘Senpaku Kenkyu Shisetsu no Seibi’ (Improvement of ship research facilities), Kobun Zassan (collection of miscellaneous public records), vol. 34 (1922) (National Archives Office). Teishin Sho Kaiji Iinkai (The Maritime Administration Committee, the Ministry of Communications), ‘Kaiungyo oyobi Zosengyo no Iji Hatten ni kansuru Hosaku’ (Policies for the development of shipbuilding and shipping industries), section 2. Zosengyo no Iji ni kansuru Hosaku (Policies for the development of shipbuilding industry), item 5. ‘Senpaku Kenkyu Shisetsu no Seibi’ (Improvement of ship research facilities), Kobun Zassan (Collection of public records), vol. 34 (1922) (National Archives Office). Turbines Being Manufactured under License from C. A. Parsons and Company, Mitsubishi Goshi Kwaisha of Tokio, Japan, 1 July 1908–12 November 1926 (Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne). Yokoyama, K., ‘Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company Ltd Rateau tarubin ni kansuru Inagaki gishi no hokoku ni tsuite’ (On Mr Inagaki’s technical report on the Rateau turbine produced by the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company Ltd), 15 July 1920 (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives, Nagasaki). Yokoyama, K., ‘Mitsubishi Juko Shashi Genko’ (A manuscript of the history of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Ltd), n.d. (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives, Nagasaki) Yokoyama, K., ‘Zai Eikoku Kengaku Hokoku’ (A report of studies in Britain), 1912 (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard Archives, Nagasaki).

Public records and periodicals Annual Report of the JSPS (Nihon Gakujutsu Shinko Kai Nenpo), no. 1 (1934)–no. 12/13 (1947).

224 Select Bibliography Annual Report of the Ministry of Education (Monbusho Nenpo), no. 20 (1892)–no. 34 (1906). Annual Report of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard (Mitsubishi Zosenjo Nenpo), 1904–1916. Annual Report of the Naval Ministry (Kaigun Sho Nenpo), 1884–1914. Census of England and Wales for the Year 1861, vol. 3 (London: 1863). Daily Mail, 2 August 1898. Daily Mail, 29 July 1898. Edinburgh Review, no. 419 (1907), pp. 185–91. Electrician, 7 October (1898), pp. 778–80. Engineering, 18 November (1904), pp. 689–92. Final Report on the First Census of Production of the United Kingdom, 1907, Part II (London: 1913). Hansard, 5th series, II, cols., pp. 931–8, pp. 943–4, 16 March 1909. Invention, 10 July 1897. Invention, 3 July 1897. Kobun Ruiju (Classified public record), File 20, vol. 24, 23 March 1896. Kobun Ruiju (Classified public record), File 23, vol. 32, 28 March 1899. Kogaku Soshi (Engineering Journal), vol. 1 (1881). Kogyo, no. 15 (1910), pp. 1–3. L’Industrie, 1 August 1897. Le Temps, 13 February (1906). Mechanical Engineering, vol. 62, no. 12 (1940), pp. 919–21. National Physical Laboratory, Report for the Year, 1901–11. National Physical Laboratory Collected Researches, vol. 6 (1910). Nature, 3 April (1873), p. 430. Nature, 12 June (1879), pp. 148–50. Nature, 19 June (1879), pp. 169–73. Nature, 17 May (1877), pp. 44–5. Nippon Teikoku Tokei Nenkan (Statistical yearbook of the Japanese empire) (Tokyo: Tokyo Tokei Kyokai), no. 2 (1883)–no. 18 (1899). North-East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders, vol. 30 (1915), pp. 582–93. Second Report of the Royal Commissioners on Technical Instruction, vol. 1 (London: 1884). Shin Nippon, vol. 1, no. 7 (1911), pp. 47–56. Shipping Gazette of Lloyd’s List, 14 October 1897. Shipping Gazette of Lloyd’s List, 28 October 1897. Shipping Gazette of Lloyd’s List, 16 November 1897. Teishin Koho (Gazette of the Ministry of Communications), no. 267 (21 November 1927), pp. 1341–2. The Times, 27 June 1897. Tokyo Daigaku, Sotsugyosei Shimei Roku (List of alumni, University of Tokyo). TINA (Transactions of the Institute of Naval Architects) vol. 1 (1860)–vol. 84 (1942). Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 6 (1908). Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 48 (1921). Zosen Kyokai Nenpo, no. 1 (1897).

Personal correspondence A letter from Yasuo Takeda, Kawasaki Heavy Industry Ltd to Kanji Toshima, IHI, n.d. (kept by Yasuo Takeda).

Select Bibliography 225 A letter from Tsuneo Yoshimura to Seikan Ishigai, 28 April 1993 (kept by Seikan Ishigai). A letter from Shun Murata to Tsuneo Yoshimura, 14 May 1993 (kept by Shibuya archives). A Letter from Tsuneo Yoshimura to the author, 16 February 1995. A letter from Ryoichiro Araki to the author, 10 March 1999.

Brochures and other materials Araki, R. ‘Joki tabin funko oyobi yoku no sekkei kosaku men chosa’ (A survey on the design and processing of the nozzles and blades of the steam turbine), report submitted to the Shibuya Bunko Chosa Iinkai (Research Committee on the Shibuya Archives), 7 December 1998. NEI Parsons Ltd, NEI Parsons: A Century of Power, n.d. (Newcastle-upon-Tyne). Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company Ltd, ‘TURBINIA’, n.d. (Newcastle-upon-Tyne). Teiyukai, Kobu Daigakko Mukashibanashi (Reminiscences of the Engineering College), Brochure of Teiyukai, no. 1 (1926).

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230 Select Bibliography Manning, F., The Life of Sir William White (London: John Murray, 1923). Martin, T., ‘Origins of the Royal Institution’, British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 1 (1962), pp. 49–63. Maruyama, M., Senchu to Sengo no Aida: 1936–1957 (Between war and postwar: 1936–1957) (Tokyo: Misuzushobo, 1976). Matsumoto, M., Fune no Kagaku Gijutsu Kakumei to Sangyo Shakai: Igirisu to Nihon no Hikaku Shakaigaku (The scientific and technological revolution in shipbuilding and industrial society in the age of imperialism: a comparative sociology of Britain and Japan) (Tokyo: Dobunkan, 1995). Matsumoto, M., ‘The Imperial Japanese Navy’s connection with a marine steam turbine transfer from the West: A sociological model of the early 20th century’, Historia Scientiarum, vol. 6, no. 3 (1997), pp. 209–27. Matsumoto, M., ‘Le jeu des rôles autour d’une turbine à vapeur’, Les Cahiers de Science & Vie, no. 41 (Octobre, 1997), pp. 80–90. Matsumoto, M., ‘Reconsidering Japanese industrialization’, Technology and Culture, vol. 40, no. 1 (1999), pp. 74–97. Matsumoto, M., ‘A hidden pitfall in the path of prewar Japanese military technology’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society for the Study of the History of Engineering and Technology, vol. 71, no. 2 (2000), pp. 305–25. Merrifield, C. W., ‘Experiments recently proposed on the resistance of ships’, TINA, vol. 11 (1870), pp. 80–93. Merton, R. K., ‘Fluctuations in the rate of industrial invention’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 49, May (1935), pp. 454–74. Merton, R. K., ‘Civilization and culture’, Sociology and Social Research, vol. 21 (1936), pp. 103–13. Merton, R. K., Social Theory and Social Structure: Towards the Codification of Theory and Research (New York: Free Press, 1949). Merton, R. K., Sociological Ambivalence and Other Essays (New York: Free Press, 1976). Meyer-Thurow, G. ‘The industrialization of invention: A case study from the German chemical industry’, Isis, vol. 73, no. 268 (1982), pp. 363–81. Millerson, G., The Qualifying Association: A Study in Professionalisation (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964). Minami, R., Power Revolution and Industrialization of Japan, 1885–1940 (Tokyo: Kinokuniya, 1987). Minato, K. ‘Kogyoteki kenkyu kikan ni tsuite’ (On an industrial research institute), Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 48 (1921), pp. 156–80. Mitchell, B. R. and Deane, P., Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962). Mitsubishi Honsha Shomubu Chosaka, Rodosha Toriatsukaikata ni kansuru Chosa Hokokusho (A report on how to manage workers) (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Zosen Jo 1914). Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, ‘Shokko Katei Jotai sonota Tokei Hyo’ (Statistical survey of the workers) (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, Nagasaki, 1923). Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo Shi (1) (The history of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard: 1) (Nagasaki: Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, 1928). Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo (ed.) Shinshu no Ura Yawa (Titbits on the shipyard) (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Zosen, 1961). Mitsubishi Sha-Shi Kanko Kai (ed.) Mitsubishi Sha-Shi (The history of the Mitsubishi Company), vol. 21: 1906–1911 (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1980). Mitsubishi Zosen, Sogyo Hyakunen no Nagasaki Zosenjo (A centenary history of the Nagasaki Shipyard) (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Zosenjo, 1957).

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234 Select Bibliography Shida, R., ‘Kogyo no shinpo wa riron to jikken tono shinwa ni yoru’ (The marriage of theory and experiment produces industrial progress), Kogaku Soshi, vol. 6, pt 67 (1887), pp. 425–50. Shimada, T., Ishizuki, M., Umeso, N., Kaneko, T., Motoyama, Y. and Watanabe, M. (eds) The Yatoi: Oyatoi Gaikokujin no Sogoteki Kenkyu (A study of foreign employees) (Tokyo: Shibunkaku Shuppan, 1987). Shimao, E., ‘Some aspects of Japanese science, 1868–1945’, Annals of Science, vol. 46, no. 1 (1989), pp. 69–91. ‘Shiota Taisuke Jijoden’ (The autobiography of Taisuke Shiota) (based on an interview by Masaki Uchiyama for private distribution, 1938). Sinclair, B., New Perspectives on Technology and American Culture (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1986). Smith, C. and Wise, M. N., Energy and Empire: A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Smith, E. C., A Short History of Naval and Marine Engineering (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1938). Smith, M. R. and Marx, L. (eds) Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994). Somerscale, E. F. C., ‘The vertical Curtis steam turbine’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society for the Study of the History of Engineering and Technology, vol. 63 (1992), pp. 1–52. Sorokin, P. A., Social and Cultural Dynamics (New York: American, 1937), vol. 1. Spencer, H., Over-Legislation: An Essay (Tokyo: Tokio Daigaku, 1878). Staudenmaier, J. M., Technology’s Storytellers: Reweaving the Human Fabric (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985). Suehiro, K., ‘Minato teishin gishi ga zosen kyokai sokai sekijo nite kokuritsu senpaku kenkyujo setsuritsu no kyumu naru o noberareshi ori no kamei no toron’ (Discussion of Mr Minato’s paper proposing the establishment of a national research institute for shipbuilding read at the general meeting of the Shipbuilding Association), Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 48 (1921), pp. 183–6. Sumida, J. T., In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology, and British Naval Policy, 1889–1914 (London: Routledge, 1993). Sumiya, M. (ed.) Nippon Shokugyo Kunren Hatten Shi, Jo kan: Senshin Gijutsu Dochakuka no Katei (The history of the development of industrial training in Japan, pt 1: The process of making advanced technology take root) (Tokyo: Nihon Rodo Kyokai, 1970). Suzuki, J., Meiji no Kikai Kogyo (The machinery industry in the Meiji period) (Kyoto: Minerva Shobo, 1996). Takezawa, S., ‘Honpo shiken suiso hattatsu shoshi (1)’ (Short history of the development of the experimental tank in Japan, pt 1), Nihon Zosen Gakkai Shi, no. 592 (1978), pp. 1–8. Tanaka, F., ‘Eikoku kokuritsu rigaku kenkyujo ni tsuite’ (On the National Physical Laboratory), Kogaku Kaishi, vol. 354 (1912), pp. 389–443. Taniguchi, K., ‘Historical review of research and development in ship hydrodynamics’, paper presented at the 75th anniversary of Nagasaki Experimental Tank 1907–1983, May (1983). Terano, S., ‘’Tabain’ sen ni tsuite’ (On vessels propelled by turbines), Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 4 (1906), pp. 57–9. Terano, S. and Shiba, C., ‘Remarks on the design and service performance of the transpacific liners Tenyo Maru and Chiyo Maru’, TINA, vol. 53, pt 2 (1911), pp. 184–92. Thackray, A., ‘Natural knowledge in cultural context: the Manchester model’, American Historical Review, vol. 79, no. 3 (1974), pp. 672–709.

Select Bibliography 235 Thackray, A., ‘The industrial revolution and the image of science’, in Thackray, A. and Mendelsohn, E. (eds) Science and Values: Patterns of Tradition and Change (New York: Humanities, 1974), pp. 3–18. Thomas, K. H. W., ‘The Royal Corps of Naval Constructors: a centenary review’, Naval Architect, September (1983), pp. 289–300. Thornycroft, J. I., ‘On the resistance opposed by water to the motion of vessels of various forms, and the way in which this varies with the velocity’, TINA, vol. 10 (1869), pp. 144–54. Thornycroft, J. I. and Barnaby, W. S., ‘Torpedo-boat destroyers’, Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. 122 (1895), pp. 51–72. Todd, E. N., ‘A tale of three cities: electrification and the structure of choice in the Ruhr, 1886–1900’, Social Studies of Science, vol. 17, no. 3 (1987), pp. 387–412. Todhunter, I., Conflict of Studies and Other Essays on Subjects connected with Education (London: Macmillan, 1873). Tokyo Daigaku Hyakunen Shi Henshu Iinkai (ed.) Tokyo Daigaku Hyakunen Shi (A centenary history of the University of Tokyo) (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1984). Tominaga, K., Nihon no Kindaika to Shakai Hendo (Japanese modernization and social change) (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1990). Trumpler, Jr, W. E. and Owens, H. M., ‘Turbine-blade vibration and strength’, Transactions of the American Society of the Mechanical Engineers, April (1955), pp. 337–41. Tsusho Sangyo Daijin Kanbo Chosa Tokeibu, Kogyo Tokei 50 Nen Shi (A history of the census of manufactures for 1909–1958) (Tokyo: Ryukei Shosha, 1961), Kaisetsu Hen. Tunzelmann, N. Von, Technology and Industrial Progress: The Foundations of Economic Growth (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1995). Uchida, H., ‘Gijutsu iten’ (Technology transfer), in S. Nishikawa and T. Abe (eds) Nihon Keizaishi 4 Sangyoka no Jidai (History of Japan’s economy IV: the age of industrialization), vol. 1 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1990), pp. 256–302. Vincenti, W. G., What Engineers Know and How They Know it: Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990). Visser, N. J., ‘Turbine blade vibration’, VMF Review, vol. 2, March (1960), pp. 61–62. Wahl, A. M., ‘Stress distribution in rotating disks subjected to creep at elevated temperature’, Journal of Applied Mechanics, June (1957), pp. 299–305. War History Unit, the National Defence College of the Defence Agency (ed.) Kaigun Gunsenbi (1) (Military equipment of the Navy, part 1) (Tokyo: Choun Shinbunsha, 1969). Weber, A. ‘Prinzipielles zur Kultursoziologie’ (Gesellschaftsprozess, Zivilisationsprozess und Kulturbewegung), Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, Band. 47 (1920), S. 1–49. Whewell, W., The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (London: John W. Parker, 1840), vol. 1. White, W. H., ‘On the establishment of an experimental tank for research work on fluid resistance and ship propulsion’, TINA, vol. 46 (1904), pp. 39–63. Wilson, G. M., ‘A new look at the problem of “Japanese Fascism”,’ Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 10, no. 4 (1968), pp. 401–12. Wise, G., ‘A new role for professional scientists in industry: industrial research at General Electric, 1900–1916’, Technology and Culture, vol. 21, no. 3 (1980), pp. 408–29. Wise, G., ‘Ionist in industry: physical chemistry at G. E., 1900–1915’, Isis, vol. 74, no. 271 (1983), pp. 7–21.

236 Select Bibliography Wray, W. D., Mitsubishi and the N.Y.K., 1870–1914: Business Strategy in the Japanese Shipping Industry (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984). Wright, T., ‘Scale models, similitude and dimensions: Aspects of mid-nineteenthcentury engineering science’, Annals of Science, vol. 49, no. 3 (1992), pp. 233–54. Yadori, S., Shoda Heigoro (Tokyo: Taikyosha, 1932). Yamazaki, M., ‘Wagakuni ni okeru dainiji sekai taisenki kagaku gijutsu doin: Inoue Tatashiro monjo ni motozuku Gijutsu In no tenkai katei’ (The wartime mobilization of science and technology in Japan during the Second World War: the development of the Board of Technology based on the Inoue Tadashiro archives), Tokyo Kogyo Daigaku Jinbun Ronshu, no. 20 (1995), pp. 171–82. Yokosuka Navy Yard (ed.) ‘Gijutsukan oyobi Shokko Kyoiku Enkaku Shi’ (The history of the training of engineers and skilled workers), n.d. Yoshioka, I., ‘William Froude Den: Kindai Kogaku no Akebono, Zosengaku no Chichi’ (Biography of William Froude, the founding father of shipbuilding, and the dawn of modern engineering) (Tokyo: for private distribution, 1985). Ziman, J. (ed.) Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Zosen Kyokai (ed.) Nippon Kinsei Zosen Shi: Meiji Jidai (The history of Japan’s modern shipbuilding: Meiji period) (Tokyo: Kodokan, 1911). Zosen Kyokai (ed.) Nihon Kinsei Zosen Shi (History of Japan’s modern shipbuilding: Taisho period) (Tokyo: Zosen Kyokai, 1935).

Name Index Abell, W. 188 Abrams, P. 185, 204 Adachi, H. 181 Akamatsu, N. 133, 209, 212 Allen, T.J. 185 Amano, I. 206 Amari, Y. 173 Anbo, K. 176, 218 Andrews, F. 220 Appleyard, R. 202, 203 Araki, E. 63, 64 Araki, R. 219 Ariga, K. 191 Arthur, W.B. 216 Asano, R. 198 Asano, S. 66 Asano, T. 198 Ayres, R.U. 180, 197 Ayrton, W.E. 183 Babbage, C. 30, 130, 181, 188, 211 Badham, R. 180 Barnaby, N. 87, 188, 202 Barnaby, W.S. 92, 98, 203 Barnes, B. 192, 193 Bartrip, P.W.J. 204 Basalla, G. 217 Beltran, A. 197 Berger, P. 214 Berman, M. 210 Bernal, J.D. 214 Bijker, W.E. 193 Bowles, A.T. 55 Brock, W.H. 183 Brown, D.K. 196 Brunel, I.K. 134 Buchanan, R.A. 217 Callon, M. 192 Cardwell, D.S.L. 204, 211, 217 Cetina, K.K. 193 Chace, M.S. 214 Clarke, J.F. 202, 203 Collins, H.M. 193 Collins, P. 211

Constant, E.W. 196, 199, 204, 217 Cooper, M.L. 210 Crane, D. 184 Curtis, C.G. 54–5 Darwin, H. 209 David, P.A. 216 Deane, P. 200 Denny, W. 120, 208 Dickinson, H.W. 217 Dosi, G. 216 Duncan, J.P. 220 Dunlop, J.T. 180 Durston, J. 96 Dutton, H.I. 202 Dyer, H. 11, 182, 183 Ellis, C.E. 145 Ewing, J.A. 9, 182, 203 Ezaki, I. 63, 64, 74, 102, 108, 109 Faraday, M. 8 Flamm, O. 214 Fox, R. 181, 217 Freeman, C. 197, 216 Frischtak, C. 199 Froude, R.E. 33, 34, 92, 97–8, 209 Froude, W. 32, 33, 97, 119, 120, 122, 134, 188 development of experimental tank 24–5, 30–1, 118, 121, 149 Fujii, T. 55–6, 74, 145, 194, 196 Fujishima, H. 33 Fukasaku, Y. 192, 208 Fukuda, K. 166, 176 Fukuma, Shipbuilding Vice-Admiral 168 Furukawa, Y. 180 Furushima, T. 182 Gaillard, J. 200 Galton, F. 30 Gawn, R.W.L. 188 Gerschenkron, A. 207 Giddens, A. 180, 186 237

238 Name Index Gilbert, N.G. 193 Gilfillan, S.C. 202 Glasgow, Earl of 121 Goldthorpe, J.H. 199 Goodall, S.V. 98, 203 Goode, T. 181 Grazebrook, R.T. 122, 208, 209 Haber, L.F. 200 Hagen, E.E. 183 Hahn, R. 201 Hall, V.M.D. 210 Hamada, H. 112, 113, 207 Hamilton, G. 203 Hans, N. 210 Harbison, F.H. 180 Hayashi, T. 187, 208 Hayashida, O. 109 Hazama, H. 206, 212 Helmholtz, H.L. 8 Hiraga, Y. 32 Hiroshige, T. 27, 34, 186, 187, 189, 215 Hirschmeier, J. 200 Howarth, O.J.R. 188, 211 Hughes, T.P. 193, 197 Imaoka, J. 126 Inagawa, Y. 41–4, 195 Inkster, I. 187 Inoue, Rear Admiral 168, 177 Ishibashi, A. 183 Ishigai, S. 195, 199, 218 Ishii, T. 208 Ishikawa, J. 215, 219 Ishiyama, H. 13, 184 Ishizuki, M. 182 Itaka, I. 114, 205 Ito, K. 109 Ito, M. 163, 218 Iwamura, Rear Admiral 168 Iwasaki, H. 106, 206 Jansen, M.B. 186 Jeremy, D.J. 184, 203 John, W. 185 Johnson, J. 214 Jones, H.J. 182 Joule, J.P. 8

Kamatani, C. 21–2, 182, 184, 186, 191, 193, 215 Kamo, M. 194 Kaneko, T. 182 Kato, H. 192 Katz, R. 185 Kawahara, G. 34–5, 40, 190 Kawasaki, Y. 109 Kell, R.C. 220 Kempe, A.B. 209 Kerr, C. 180 Kido, S. 40 Kikuchi, T. 177 Kirby, F.E. 214 Klobas, J.E. 185 Kobayashi, M. 208 Kobayashi, T. 184, 187 Kondo, M. 145, 190, 214 Krishna, V.V. 200 Kubota, Y. 170, 219 Kumar, D. 200 Lamport, C. 28–9, 30, 31 Landes, D.S. 180 Latour, B. 192–3, 201 Laudan, R. 193 Law, J. 217 Layton, E.T. 192, 198 Lebeau, A. 199 Leblanc, N. 8 Lee, D.M. 185 Leist, K. 220 Leslie, S.W. 229 Leupp, F.E. 180 Lewin, K. 184 Leyland, C.J. 201, 203 Lindqvist, S. 184 Luck, G.A. 220 Luckmann, T. 214 Luke, W.J. 209 Lukes, S.M. 212 Macdonald, S. 185 Mackenzie, D. 193 MacLeod, R. 211 Makino, K. 107, 206 Manning, F. 188, 203 Marbec, L.A. 214 Martin, B. 193 Martin, T. 210

Name Index 239 Maruta, H. 34, 64, 74 Maruyama, M. 185–6 Marx, K. 180 Marx, L. 184 Matsumoto, M. 186, 191, 194, 205, 208, 217, 220 Maw, W.H. 209 McGill, T. 185 McKendrich, N. 210 Mendelsohn, E. 201 Merrifield, C.W. 28–9, 30, 188 Merton, R.K. 184–5, 187, 201, 204, 214 Meyer-Thurow, G. 180, 200–1 Mikawa, Rear Admiral 168 Millerson, G. 211 Milton, J.T. 209 Minami, R. 197 Minato, K. 124–5, 126, 129, 209 Mitchell, B.R. 200 Miyahara, J. 64 Miyamoto, T. 215 Miyoshi, F. 75 Miyoshi, N. 182, 183 Mizutani, R. 64 Morell, E. 10, 182 Mori, S. 219 Morrell, J.B. 210, 211 Morris, A. 35 Morris-Suzuki, T. 208 Moseley, R. 213 Motora, S. 33–4, 35–7, 189, 190 Motoyama, Y. 182 Moulin, A. 199–200 Mulkay, M. 193 Murakami, H. 166, 176 Murata, S. 179, 217 Myers, C.A. 180 Mytelka, L.K. 199

Okawa, K. 205 Okochi, M. 211 Ono, K. 171, 219 Orange, A.D. 188, 211 Osumi, Minister of the Navy Otsuka, H. 185 Owens, H.M. 219 Oyodo, S. 215

Nakanishi, Y. 195, 204–5, 207 Nakaoka, T. 187, 197, 208 Nakayama, S. 183, 220 Nelson, R. 197, 199, 211 Nonaka, S. 214 Noro, E. 180 Nye, D.E. 193

Rankine, W.J.M. 8, 30 Rateau, A. 214 Rayleigh, Lord 209 Reader, W.J. 211 Reich, L.S. 180, 200 Richards, E. 193 Richardson, A. 204, 205 Robertson, P. 212 Rogers, E. 184 Rosenberg, N. 199, 216 Rosse, Earl of 203

Ogburn, W.F. 213, 216 Ogura, K. 186 Okano, S. 206

176

Parsons, C.A. 9, 52, 74, 82, 85–6, 96, 101, 115, 191, 192, 197, 199, 202, 204, 207, 211, 217 cavitation 202–3 dispute with Clarke Chapman and Company 202 INA 134, 201 networking 97–9 Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company 63 patent for marine turbine 50, 87, 88, 160 R&D 94, 95 and ‘spin-on’ in development of marine steam turbine 87–94 Turbinia 83–4 Parsons, G.L. 90 Perkin, W.H. 8 Perrin, J. 191 Petitjean, C.J. 199–200 Pfetsch, F. 201 Pigott, S.J. 219 Pinch, T.P. 193 Pollard, S. 212 Pringle, S. 66, 198 Purvis, F.P. 32–3, 188, 209 Pyatt, E. 208 Pyenson, L. 200

240 Name Index Russell, J.S. 29 Russo, G. 214 Sachs-Jeantet, C. 199 Saito, M. 194 Sakagami, S. 220 Sakurai, J. 184 Salomon, J.-J. 199 Samuels, R.J. 191, 193, 208 Sanderson, M. 202 Sawai, M. 216 Scaife, W.G. 191, 217 Schlick, O. 214 Schofield, R.E. 210 Scott, J.D. 180 Scranton, P. 217 Secord, J.A. 186 Sendo, M. 163, 218 Shaw, C. 203 Shiba, C. 66, 145, 197 Shiba, K. 34–5, 40, 190 Shibuya, R. 161, 162, 167, 169, 195, 217, 218, 219 Shida, F. 183 Shida, R. 8, 12, 181, 183 Shimada, T. 182 Shimao, E. 183 Shinohara, M. 205 Shiota, T. 66 Shoda, H. 64–5, 66, 71, 106 Shoemaker, F. 184 Simpson, J.B. 203 Sinclair, B. 187 Smith, C. 204 Smith, E.C. 181 Smith, M.R. 184 Smith, W.E. 209 Soete, L. 197, 216 Somerscale, E.F.C. 194 Sorokin, P.A. 187 Spencer, H. 100, 204 Staudenmeier, J.M. 204 Stephenson, G. 82 Stone, L. 186 Stoney, G.G. 203 Stuart, J. 89 Suehiro, K. 124, 125–6, 145, 209 Sugawara, S. 154 Sugi, M. 162

Sugiyama, Chief of General Staff 219 Sumida, J.T. 196 Sumiya, M. 205–6 Sumner, W.G. 213 Suzuki, J. 194 Swinton, A.A.C. 203 Tachibana, T. 176, 218 Takahashi, Y. 176 Takami, F. 190 Takeda, Y. 218, 219, 220 Takeshita, S. 40 Takezawa, S. 189 Taniguchi, K. 36, 189 Taylor, D.W. 34 Terano, S. 66, 129, 145, 197, 198 Thackray, A. 210, 211 Thearle, S.J.P. 209 Thomas, K.H.W. 203 Thomson, J.J. 8 Thornycroft, J.I. 28, 92, 98, 187, 188, 203 Todd, E.N. 197 Todhunter, I. 89, 202 Tominaga, K. 185 Toshima, K. 173 Trumpler, W.E. 219 Tunzelmann, N. Von 216 Tushman, M.L. 185 Uchida, H. 187, 208 Uchida, R. 212 Uchida, S. 176 Uchimaru, S. 76, 200 Umemura, M. 205 Umeso, N. 182 Vincenti, W.G. 101, 204 Visser, N.J. 220 Waast, R. 200 Wahl, A.M. 220 Watanabe, M. 182 Watt, J. 82 Watts, P. 96 Weber, A. 213–14 Whewell, W. 181

Name Index 241 White, W.H. 96, 138, 145–6, 208, 209, 214 experimental tank at NPL 119, 120, 121 Williams, C. 185 Wilson, G.M. 186 Winter, S.G. 197, 216 Wise, G. 180, 200 Wise, M.N. 204 Woolgar, S. 192–3 Wray, W.D. 207 Wright, T. 209 Yadori, S. 198 Yagi, H. 158, 216 Yamagata, A. 212 Yamamoto, I. 168

Yamamoto, N. 40 Yamazaki, M. 216 Yarrow, A.F. 120–2, 129, 194, 201, 209 Yasugi, S. 173 Yokoyama, K. 64, 73, 102–3, 105, 197, 199, 205, 206, 207 technical report appended to Hamada’s secret document 112–13, 114 Yonai, Minister of the Navy 176, 177 Yoshida, Minister of the Navy 177 Yoshida, T. 211 Yoshioka, I. 188, 204 Yukawa, M. 145 Ziman, J. 217 Zuckerman, H. 184–5

Subject Index accuracy 44 Ad Hoc Investigation Committee on Finance and Economy 125, 127 advantages of backwardness 111 Advisory Tank Committee 122, 135 Agency of Aeronautics 158 Agency of Planning (Kikaku In) 156 aircraft production 157–8 Aki 161 amateur inventors 31, 188 amateur tradition 4, 181 Amethyst 53, 95 Anyomaru 72, 73, 108 Aoba 114 Asahio 163, 164, 165 backwardness 111 basic research 121, 125–6, 128–9 behaviour patterns 20–1 Imperial Japanese Navy 46–7 Mitsubishi 37–9 see also rationality binodal vibration 171–2, 173 Board of Technology (Gijutsu In) 146, 152, 154–8, 159, 215–16 Britain 4–5, 16, 24–5, 115–16, 148–9, 150–1 experimental tank at the NPL 25, 119–24, 135, 137–8, 141, 142–3, 149–50, 151 implications of nationalization of R&D 136–40 laissez-faire state 20, 99–101 patterns of institutionalization 140–2 professional societies 14, 15 science and technology gap with Japan 28–32 social organization of research 128–36 British Association for the Advancement of Science 29, 30, 130 Brown, John, and Company 120 Cambridge University 89 catch-up industrialization 27–8

Cavendish Laboratory 89 cavitation 68, 72, 92–3, 202–3 Central Aeronautical Research Institute 156 chemistry 184 Civil Engineering Society 135 Clarke Chapman and Company 90, 202 coal consumption per hour 69, 71 Cobra 50, 95 collectivism 136 company-sponsored education 106–8 complementary gatekeeper roles 48 composite model 7, 19–20, 23 dimensions of ‘composite’ 20–2 confirmation tests 170–1 continuous industrialization models 3–4 cultural mentality 187 culture, endogenous 139–42, 143, 150, 213 Curtis turbine 54–9, 112, 194, 198 Daily Mail 84 de facto ‘spin-off’ 115, 149 Mitsubishi 111–15 Royal Navy 94–9 De Laval turbine 112 Denny, W., and Brothers 34–5, 45, 120 Department of Science and Arts 120 descriptive models 6, 17 dichotomous categorization 136 direct-coupled turbines 68, 72–3 domestic production 59, 67–8, 69 drawing office 107–8 Dreadnought 95 dual rationality 61–3, 78–9 dual strategy 23 dual-use technologies 6, 20, 50 see also experimental tank; marine steam turbine economic models 6, 16–17 economies of scale 116

242

Subject Index 243 Electrical Engineering Society 14–16 endogenous culture 139–42, 143, 150, 213 engine section 108 Engineering College (Monbu Sho) 9–12, 23, 40, 76, 102, 147, 184 Engineering College of the Imperial University 75, 76, 102 engineering education 9–12, 75–6, 89 Engineering Society 14 entrepreneurship 40 risk-taking by Mitsubishi 68–73 experimental tank 5–6, 24–5, 26–49, 118–19, 147–8, 149 British NPL 25, 119–24, 135, 137–8, 141, 142–3, 149–50, 151 characteristics compared with marine steam turbine 50–1 Japanese national tank 124–8, 135, 137–8, 142–3, 149–50, 151, 212 role of Imperial Japanese Navy 26, 41–7, 48, 125, 147–8 role of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard 32–41, 43–4, 47, 125, 147–8; risk-taking behaviour 40–1, 46–7 science and technology gap 28–32 Experimental Tank Unit (Mitsubishi) 39–40, 47, 48, 49 failure of naval turbine 25, 146, 159–74, 178–9 and outbreak of war 167–72 secrecy 163–7 fees for tests 137–8 First World War 161 foreign employees 9–12, 23 Foreriver Shipbuilding Company 55, 56, 195 Fourth Squadron Incident 166–7, 176 French navy 44 Froude number 31, 203 Froude’s law of proportional resistances and speeds 120 fuel-efficiency 69–70, 71 full-scale ship experiments 44 function 116, 150–1 function-oriented perspective 63 functional disintegration 159 fund-raising 122, 123, 135–6 Furutaka 114

gatekeeper model 16–18 dimensions of ‘gatekeepers’ 18–19 see also technology gatekeepers geared turbines 72–3, 161–2 Germany 3–4, 21 Gihon turbine 113 Gijutsu Report 189 global hegemony 24 government-directed industrialization 7, 12, 19, 21–2, 23, 78, 80 government financial aid 54, 137, 196, 212–13 government-sponsored industrial education 106–7 grants-in-aid 153, 154 Great Exhibition 130 Greyhound experiment 31, 32 Haslar experimental tank 33, 44, 46, 97, 99 see also Torquay experimental tank Hiro Naval Dockyard 170, 171 historical models 6, 17 hull resistance 28–30, 31, 97–8, 120 human networking 97–9, 100 human resources 9–12, 23 Ibuki 52–3, 161 Imperial Diet 127, 165–7, 176–7 Imperial Grant 153, 215 Imperial Japanese Navy 22 development of Kanpon turbine 160–3 experimental tank 26, 41–7, 48, 125, 147–8 transfer of marine steam turbine 24, 54–61, 64, 74, 113, 115, 148; rationality 61–3, 77, 78–9 turbine failure 25, 146, 159–74, 178–9; outbreak of war 167–72; secrecy 163–7 Imperial University of Tokyo Engineering College 75, 76, 102 Shipbuilding Department 40, 75, 77, 79, 200 impulse turbines 112–14, 160 individualism 136 industrial education 106–8 industrial policy, rationality of 62–3 industrial sector 153–4

244 Subject Index industrial standards 156 industrialization 1–22, 27–8, 147 composite model 7, 19–22, 23 domestic professional societies 12–16 dual strategy 23 government-directed 7, 12, 19, 21–2, 23, 78, 80 government-directed and privately directed 80 new gatekeeper model 16–19 role of Ministry of Engineering and Engineering College 9–12 scientific and technological revolution 1, 2–5 ship revolution 1, 5–6 uneven progress 174–5 industry promotion policy 9 infrastructure 10, 23 Institute for the Compilation of Historical Records relating to the Imperial Japanese Navy 164–5 Institution of Civil Engineers 89 Institution of Mechanical Engineers 89 Institution of Naval Architects (INA) 28–9, 32, 89, 119, 120–1, 128–36, 145 institutional structure 6–7, 9–12, 20, 23, 77 military-industrial-university complex see military-industrial-university complex Mitsubishi 39–40 see also composite model institutionalization 25 patterns of 140–2 interaction between science, technology and industrial society 139–42 intermediary mechanism 72–3 intermediate types 59, 61, 114 International Congress in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering 145 invention 108–10 inventors 87 Ishikawajima Shipbuilding Company 114 Ishuin fuse 174 Itaka metal 105, 114, 207

Japan 7–8 implications of nationalization of R&D 136–40 National Experimental Tank 124–8, 135, 137–8, 142–3, 149–50, 151, 212 patterns of institutionalization 140–2 social context of ‘spin-on’ 102–5, 115–16 social organization of research 128–36 Japan Shipbuilding Society 162, 164 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Nihon Gakujutsu Shinko Kai) (JSPS) 146, 152–4, 155, 159 Kanpon turbine 59, 60, 114, 174 development 160–3 failure 162–7 Kawachi 52–3, 57 Kawasaki Heavy Industry Ltd 173 Kawasaki Shipbuilding Company 57–8, 59, 113, 198 Kawasaki type 58 Kelso Company 35, 45 King Edward 50, 52 laissez-faire state 20, 99–101 latecomers to industrialization 139 learning, stages of 37 licence contracts 161, 162 licensed production 56–8 limited partnership 110 Literary and Philosophical Society 130 London naval disarmament treaty 166, 218 Lunar Society 130 Maizuru Naval Dockyard 170 manufacturing rights 63–5 marine steam turbine 5–6, 24, 50–80, 81–117, 148–9 combining of technology gatekeepers 74–8 course of technology transfer to Japan 52–4 developments in laissez-faire British state 99–101 failure of naval turbine 25, 146, 159–72, 172–4, 178–9; and outbreak of war 167–72; secrecy 163–7

Subject Index 245 marine steam turbine – continued Imperial Japanese Navy 24, 54–61, 64, 74, 113, 115, 148; rationality 61–3, 77, 78–9 industrial education within the company 106–8 invention within the organization 108–10 Japanese social context of ‘spin-on’ 102–5 Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard 24, 63–8, 74, 77, 148; entrepreneurial risk-taking 68–73, 77, 79 Mitsubishi type and de facto ‘spin-off’ 111–15 Parsons and ‘spin-on’ 87–94 role of Royal Navy 94–9 science and technical practice 101–2 social impact of the Turbinia 83–7 Marine Steam Turbine Company 77, 91–4, 95, 149, 203 see also Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company market rationality 61–3, 196 Materials Testing Laboratory 103–5 Mechanical Engineering Society 14–16 Meiji Restoration 7 Mejiro tank 124–8, 135, 137–8, 142–3, 149–50, 151, 212 membership qualification standards 133–5 military-industrial-university complex 24, 50, 79, 143–4, 150–1 emergence 74–8 transformation 173–4, 175 wartime mobilization and 151–9 Minekaze 114 mining industry 10 Ministry of Commerce and Industry 156 Ministry of Communications 127, 128, 156 Ship Administration Bureau 127, 135, 212 Ministry of Education (Monbu Sho) 9, 10, 80, 106, 154 Ministry of Engineering (Kobu Sho) 9–12, 23, 80, 117, 147, 184 Engineering College 9–12, 23, 40, 76, 102, 147, 184

Mitsubishi Industrial Preparatory School 40, 106–8 Mitsubishi Limited Partnership 74 Mitusbishi Nagasaki Shipyard 22, 26, 48–9, 57–8, 59, 116–17, 149 de facto ‘spin-off’ 111–15 experimental tank 32–41, 43–4, 47, 125, 147–8; risk-taking behaviour 40–1, 46–7 industrial education 106–8 invention within 108–10 Japanese social context of ‘spin-on’ 102–5 organization 110 transfer of marine steam turbine 24, 63–8, 74, 77, 148; risk-taking behaviour 68–73, 77, 79 Mitsubishi type 58, 105, 111–15, 116 model ship experiments 35–7, 38, 44, 92–3, 189 Mogami 57, 76 Monel metal 105 multiple invention 196 Munition Industry Mobilization Law 152 Munro type 45, 46 Nagasaki Research Institute 105 Nagasaki Shipyard 117 see also Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard national interest 46–7 National Physical Laboratory (NPL) experimental tank 25, 119–24, 135, 137–8, 141, 142–3, 149–50, 151 national research institutes 22, 24–5, 152–9 National State Agency of the Cabinet 152 nationalization of R&D 118–44, 149–50 British ‘spin-off’ process 119–24 implications of 136–40 Japanese ‘spin-off’ process 124–8 patterns of institutionalization 140–2 social background underlying public R&D organizations 128–36 naval armaments race 5, 86 naval turbine failure see failure of naval turbine naval vessel incidents 165–7, 176–7 networking, human 97–9, 100

246 Subject Index ‘Opinions on Industrialization’ (Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce) 8 order-made rules 140 organizational studies 18–19 Pall Mall Gazette 84 Paris experimental tank 44 Parliamentary Vice-Minister of the Navy 46, 191 Parsons, C.A., and Company, Heaton Works 90–1, 92 Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company 57, 63–4, 74, 94, 95, 111, 203 Parsons turbine 112, 194 Imperial Japanese Navy 54–9 Mitsubishi 63–7, 74 patent 88 production 85–6 Patent Office 156 patents 87–9, 108–9 Pax Britannica 86 postwar industrial development 173 practical experience 101–2, 106–8 precision instruments 35, 39 prior inquiries 55–7 private sector 16, 19–20, 48, 63, 117 contributions to NPL tank 121–2, 123 privatization 117 product-cycle model 6, 16–17 product innovations 51, 85 professional schools 12 professional societies 12–16, 128–36 professionalization 12–16, 87–90, 130–2 propellers 72 cavitation 68, 72, 92–3, 202–3 propulsion efficiency equations 33–4, 189 prototype 59 public sector 19–20, 48, 62, 63 QE2 173 railways 10 Rateau turbine 112 rationality 199 Imperial Japanese Navy 77, 78–9 Mitsubishi and 69–70

reaction turbines 112–14, 160 ready-made rules 140 reduction gearing 72–3, 161–2 relative advantage 55, 62 research and development (R&D) 81–117, 148–9 expenditure on 94–5 industrial education within the company 106–8 invention within the organization 108–10 Japanese social context of ‘spin-on’ 102–5 laissez-faire British state 99–101 Mitsubishi type and de facto ‘spin-off’ 111–15 nationalization see nationalization of R&D Parsons and ‘spin-on’ 87–94 role of Royal Navy 94–9 research and development (R&D) organizations 3–4, 118 research institutes, national 22, 24–5, 152–9 Research Mobilization Ordinance 152, 159 resistance 128–9 ‘Rich Nation, Strong Army’ policy 10 Rinkicho failure 25, 146, 159–74, 178–9 and outbreak of war 167–72 secrecy 163–7 risk avoidance 77, 78–9 risk-taking behaviour 40–1, 46–7, 68–73, 77, 79 rival types 58–61 routine testing 121 Royal Corps of Naval Constructors 96 Royal Institution 130 Royal Naval College 20, 185 Royal Navy 31, 33, 44, 46, 94–9, 115, 149 Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering 20 Royal Society 30 rules 137–40, 142–3, 212 Russo-Japanese War 63, 174

46–7, 61–3, Sakuramaru 192, 198–9 samurai 12

Subject Index 247 School of Naval Architecture 20 science and technology gap 28–32 science and technology transfer 6, 7–8, 23, 27–8, 174 new gatekeeper model 16–18 scientific education 76 scientific expertise 102–5 scientific insight 101–2 scientific and technological revolution 1, 2–5 screw propeller testing machine 45 Second Industrial Revolution 2–5 Second World War 160, 167–72 secrecy 163–7 sectionalism 154–6 selection mechanisms 42–7 self-reliant development 129, 172 Shibuya archives 167, 177–8 Shimose gunpowder 174 Ship Administration Bureau, Ministry of Communications 127, 135, 212 ship revolution 1, 5–6 structure and function 147–51 Shipbuilding Association 32, 33, 54, 125, 128–36 research committee on the experimental tank 125, 126–7 Shipbuilding Department of Imperial University 40, 75, 77, 79, 200 shipbuilding industry 28 Shipbuilding Promotion Law (Zosen Shorei Ho) 66–7 Shipping Promotion Law (Kokai Shorei Ho) 66, 198 Shunyomaru 52, 53, 67–8, 70, 198 Sino-Japanese War 63 social change 2–5, 180 social history approach 21–2 social organization of research 128–36 social process 81, 201 sociology of science 18–19 Special Examination Committee (Rinkicho) 163–5, 167–8, 169 specialization 13–14, 15, 87, 89, 130 patterns of 131–2 ‘spin-off’ 24–5, 81, 149–50, 151 de facto 94–9, 111–15, 149 nationalization of R&D see nationalization of R&D

‘spin-on’ 24, 81, 115, 148–9, 150–1 in development of marine steam turbine 87–94 Japanese social context of 102–5 standard turbine 160–3 standards for membership qualification 133–5 state interventionist rationality 61–3, 196 Steam-ship Performance Committee of the British Association 30 steam turbine 50 marine see marine steam turbine structural integration 159 structure 116, 150–1 ‘success story’ accounts 77, 159 Sumire 114

tactical behaviour 46–7 Tangomaru 65 Technical Headquarters of the Navy (Kaigun Kansei Honbu) 41–2, 48 technical personnel 74–5 technical practice 101–2, 106–8 technology gatekeepers 6 combining 74–8 rationality 46–7, 61–3, 77, 78–9, 199 risk-taking 40–1, 46–7, 47, 68–73, 77, 79 see also gatekeeper model; Imperial Japanese Navy; Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard technology transfer 6, 7–8 Tenyomaru 37, 39, 52, 53, 70, 76, 79, 103, 198 order for 65–6 specifications 68 testing service rules 137–40 thermal efficiency 72 thermodynamics 76 time lag 27, 52–3, 128 Torquay experimental tank 31, 33, 97, 119–20, 121 see also Haslar experimental tank total efficiency 72 Toyo Kisen Company 65–6 Tsugarumaru 111–12, 114

248 Subject Index turbine failure see failure of naval turbine turbine ships 37–9 turbine shop 67 Turbinia 83–7, 91–2 United States 3–4 US Navy 44 venture business 91–2, 100 vibration, binodal 171–2, 173 Victorian 66 Viper 50, 95 Virginian 66 vocationalization 13, 14–16, 87, 89–90, 130 patterns of 131–2

War History Unit 163–4 wartime mobilization 25, 48–9, 77, 146 and military-industrial-university complex 151–9 Wartime Mobilization Law 151–2, 159, 170 Washington experimental tank 44 Washington naval disarmament treaty 113 water consumption per hour 69, 70 William Froude National Tank 25, 119–24, 135, 137–8, 141, 142–3, 149–50, 151 Yokosuka Navy Yard Zölly turbine

190

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