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Rumbles in the Ricefields: Professor Nakamura vs. the Official Statistics

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Agricultural Production and the Economic Development of Japan, 1873–1922. By NakamuraJames I.. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966. xxiii, 257. $7.50.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Henry Rosovsky
Henry Rosovsky
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , February 1968 , pp. 347 - 360
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Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1968

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References

1 See Yamada, S., “Nōgyō sanshutsu gaku no suikei” (Estimation of the Value of Agriculture Production), Keizai kenhyū (The Economic Review), XV, I (January 1964)Google Scholar, and Johnston, B. F., “Agricultural Productivity and Economic Development in Japan,” journal of Political Economy, VII, 2 (November 1947)Google Scholar.

2 “The Growth Rate of Japanese Agricultural Production, 1878–1882 to 1912–1917: A Critical Analysis of Conflicting Hypotheses” (mimeographed).

3 Ibid., p. 55. One koku = 4.9629 bushels; one tan = .245 acres.

4 The rejection of the official yields is what really matters, and—at least in an earlier version of his work—Professor Nakamura was fully aware of this when he wrote: “Whether the bold conclusions [of his work] stand or fall depends largely on whether the objectives [to prove that yield was underreported and that paddy yield stood at approximately 1.6 koku in the 1870's] are realized.” I fully agree with this evaluation. See Nakamura, James I., “Growth of Japanese Agriculture, 1875–1920,” in Lockwood, W. W. (ed.), The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 277Google Scholar.

5 Ishii, R. (ed.), Japanese Legislation in the Meiji Era, trans. William J. Chambliss (Tokyo: 1958), P. 722Google Scholar.

6 Phyllis Deane's observations concerning eighteenth century Britain strike me as highly relevant: “The effect of … regional variations in economic conditions is that statistics relating to a particular area may give no indication of the comparable movements for the nation as a whole and that the national aggregate may obscure the trends for regions in which the significant changes are taking place.” The First Industrial Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridges University Press, 1965), pp. 17–18Google Scholar.

7 All these yields are averages for the years 1877–81.

8 Chapter 13 of the official Chiso kaisei hōkokusho (Report on the Land Tax Survey), reproduced by Shibundō Co. (1951), Vol. I, 8–9.

9 In his example Professor Nakamura seems to exaggerate the difference between the prefectual average and the Imanishi records. He cites the Osaka yield average from 1881 to 1885, which was 1.496 koku. But, as shown in his appendix table 5, official yields declined from 1879 to 1884. Zenkoku nōsanhyō shows an average yield for Kawachi (1877–81) of 1.732, and according to the Kaku Fu-Ken chiso kaisei kiyō the average for Osaka Prefecture in the late eighteen seventies was 1.929.

10 Chiso kaisei hōkokusho.

11 See Furushima, Toshio, Sangyōshi (A History of Industry), III (Tokyo: 1966), 92–93Google Scholar. Furushima analyzed the yield returns for 28 kuni in the eighteen seventies and for each one shows the yields of the highest and lowest villages, and the weighted average of the entire area. Two points deserve notice. First, the spread between top and bottom villages is always very large. Second, the four kuni with weighted average yields of over 1.6 koku produced under 6 per cent of die rice within this large sample.

12 A brief passage from Eli Heckscher concerning this type of evidence seems appropriate: “Individual statements in numerical form are the very opposite of [mass observations], and few data are more dangerous. For they have a certain look of exactitude, which may cover a multitude of sins. Many people are apt to question a statement expressed in words, while accepting uncritically an entirely unwarranted statement in figures. What has been said of the questionable character of much contemporary evidence is particularly applicable to such evidence in numerical form. It may be merely a guess or hearsay, and is, for earlier times, almost never based upon a systematic study of social conditions, for the simple reason that such a study was next to impossible.” “Quantitative Measurement in Economic History,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, LIII 2 (February 1939), 190Google Scholar.

13 Ario, , Hompō chiso no enkaku (A History of Japan's Land Tax), (Tokyo: 1914), p. 54Google Scholar. Ario's statement is quite confusing. As I read him, he means to say that the entire plan (fukuan) of the government did not give die expected results with regard to yields, prices and interest rates. It could also be taken to mean that the government was unsuccessful in raising local yield figures if they fell below “expected” averages. If the predetermination argument has validity, it would seem to me the government should not have been especially interested in raising yield estimates.

14 Essentially as contained in Ohkawa, K. and Others, The Growth Rate of the Japanese Economy Since 1878 (Tokyo: 1957), Part II, Chapter I.Google Scholar

15 As contained in M. Umemura and Others, Chōki keizai tōkei, Vol. 9: Nōrin-gyō (Estimates of Long-Term Economic Statistics of Japan Since 1868, Vol. 9: Agriculture and Forestry), (Tokyo: 1966)Google Scholar.

16 See Ohkawa, K. and Rosovsky, H., “The Role of Agriculture in Modern Japanese Economic Development,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, IX, i, Part 2 (October 1960)Google Scholar.

17 See Y. Hayami and S. Yamada, “Agricultural Productivity At the Beginning of Industrialization,” Table 2 (mimeographed). Paper presented to The International Conference on Agriculture and Economic Development: A Symposium on Japan's Experience; Tokyo, July 1967.

18 Hiromitsu Kaneda, “Long-Term Changes in Food Consumption Patterns in Japan 1878–1964” (mimeographed), Yale University, Economic Growth Center Discussion Paper No. 21 (April 1967), Table 1. Using domestic production as estimated by Nakamura, Kaneda computes an average per capita rice availability of 177 kg. in 1878–82, and 173 kg. in 1918–22. The comparable Hayami-Yamada results for the same years are 137 kg. and 173 kg. respectively.

19 Kaneda, “Long-Term Changes in Food Consumption …,” p. 6.

20 Hayami and Yamada, “Agricultural Productivity …,” p. 10.

21 For example, see Ogura, Takekazu (ed.), Agricultural Development in Modern Japan (Tokyo: 1963), pp. 181–82Google Scholar.

22 Cited in Gulick, Sidney L., Evolution of the Japanese (New York: 1903, 1905), p. 277Google Scholar.

23 Hayami and Yamada, “Agricultural Productivity …,” Table 4.

24 Ibid., Table 6.

25 Y. Hayami and S. Yamada, “Technological Progress in Agriculture” (Mimeographed), a paper presented to the International Conference on Economic Growth: A Case Study of Japan's Experience, Tokyo, 1966. All the papers presented to this conference will be published by Yale University Press in 1968.