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Agricultural Development in Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Ramon H. Myers  and
Adrienne Ching
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Extract

Studies of Asian agriculture have argued that land-tenure systems have often retarded agricultural development, in that unequal land distribution and widespread tenancy have given peasants little power to resist landlord efforts to squeeze and rack-rent them. Because landlords have been disinclined to devote their wealth and energies to improving the land, agriculture has stagnated and peasants have became poorer. A conspicuous weakness in this argument is that it begs the question whether a land-tenure system of more or less equal holdings best promotes agricultural development. The land-tenure system influences income distribution in agriculture, but it is impossible to say how a given income distribution influences landlord consumption, saving, and investment decisions unless more is known about the social and political institutions of a given rural society.

Type
Symposium on Chinese Studies and the Disciplines
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , August 1964 , pp. 555 - 570
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1964

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References

1 Klein, Sidney, The Pattern of Land Tenure Reform in East Asia After World War II (New York, 1958), p. 17Google Scholar; Institute of Pacific Relations, Agrarian China: Selected Source Materials from Chinese Authors (Chicago, 1938), Sect, 1Google Scholar; Parsons, Kenneth H., Penn, Raymond J., and Raup, Philip M., Land Tenure (Madison, 1956), p. 3Google Scholar; UN, Dept, of Economic Affairs, Land Reform: Defects in Agrarian Structure as Obstacles to Economic Development (New York, 1951).Google Scholar

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10 The clearest and most precise statements of Japanese colonial agricultural policy can be found in the Taiwan Nōjihō, a remarkable primary document, published by the Taipei agricultural experimental station. For an official statement on using persuasive means, see Inazo, Nitobe, “Nōgyō Shidōsha no Kokoro e” (“How to Lead the Taiwanese Farmer”), Taiwan Nōjihō, CXIII (04 1916), 263Google Scholar; see also Kamehiko, Iwaki, pp. 205–206Google Scholar, who cites examples of Japanese landlords establishing agricultural schools, credit associations, agricultural associations, and assisting tenants. Iwaki believed Taiwan landlords should be persuaded to behave in similar fashion. However, there was another school of officials whose spokesman perhaps was Togō Minoru. The argument of this group was that strong police and administrative action was required to make sure that technological change took root at the village level (see footnote 29). Both groups agreed upon the importance of the landlord; it seems that only slight differences in viewpoint prevailed about how to use the landlord to administration advantage.

11 The sweet potato was introduced to Taiwan from Fukien some time in the late 16th century. Its importance as a food crop is indicated by the local adage, “Taiwan's first harvest provides enough for all to eat for the entire year.” After 1895, sweet potatoes never became an important export but remained an important food supplement in the village. See Han-k'ung, Chen, “Hsiang-che in-chin T'ai-wan te t'an-t'ao” (“A Study of the Introduction of the Sweet Potato into Taiwan”), T'ai-wan Wen-hsien, XII (09 1961), 10–18.Google Scholar

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17 Ōkurasho, , ed., Metji Taisho Zaisei Shi (History of Meiji and Taisho Finance), XIX (Tokyo, 1958), 198.Google Scholar

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30 Hayashi Shimpatsu, Sect, on Industry, pp. 47–50. December 20, 1901, Nōjishiken Jō, or agricultural experimental stations, were established in Taichung and Tainan. Later, stations were created in other districts. In 1908, expenditures out of ordinary account for these stations totaled 72,018 yen, or .4 per cent of ordinary expenditures. Expenditures gradually increased until in 1920 they were 570,173 yen, but still only .9 per cent of ordinary expenditures. See Ōkurasho, , pp. 933, 943.Google Scholar

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37 This factor has been stressed in an earlier study by Han-yu, Chang and Myers, Ramon H., “Japanese Colonial Development Policy in Taiwan, 1895–1906,” Journal of Asian Studies, XXII (08 1963), 440.Google Scholar

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64 Ibid., pp. 511–512.

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77 Ibid., p. 31. See also Rada, E. L. and Lee, T. H., Irrigation Investment in Taiwan (Taipei, 1963), pp. 33–45Google Scholar; they show large increases in rice yields 1922–1938, resulting from new irrigation.