Abstract
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.
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Notes
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 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 trans-fer), 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.
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).
The descriptions are based on C. W. Merrifield, ‘Experiments recently proposed on the resistance of ships’, TINA, vol. 11 (1870), pp. 80–93.
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.
Charles Babbage, Reflections on the Decline of Science in Englandand on Some of Its Causes (London: B. Fellowes, 1830), p. 152.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, gold-smiths, dyers, coach-makers, toy-makers, fruiterers, tallow-chandlers, brewers, and so on.
F. P. Purvis, ‘On a proposed experimental tank’, Zosen Kyokai Nenpo, no. 6, December (1902), pp. 37–43.
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 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.
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.
Zosen Kyokai, Nihon Kinsei Zosen Shi (History of Japan’s modern shipbuilding) (Tokyo: Zosen Kyokai, 1935), Taisho era, p. 635.
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).
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).
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.
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© 2006 Miwao Matsumoto
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Matsumoto, M. (2006). The Technology Gatekeepers: The Role of the Navy and Mitsubishi in the Ship Revolution. In: Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230504172_2
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