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The Problem of the Peasant Agriculturist in Meiji Japan, 1873-1885
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 August 2016
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The problem of the economic condition of the peasantry in societies in the early stages of an industrial revolution has long been a matter of interest to economic historians, and recently it has been taken up by economists concerned with the contemporary problem of economic development. The prototype has traditionally been the career of the peasantry in England during the period after 1750. The classical description of the fate of this peasantry is well known, a tale of ruthless enclosure, steady increase in landless day laborers, and a persistent decline in the standard of life. The ablest description of this process in the venerable vein can be found in the writings of Arnold Toynbee, Paul Mantoux, and John and Barbara Hammond. Since about 1925, however, the canonical view of the career of the English peasantry has come under serious attack by J. H. Clapham, T. S. Ashton, and J. D. Chambers. In fact, the older view so passionately explored by the Hammonds has been much modified, and a new picture of the impact of the industrial revolution on the peasantry is slowly emerging.
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References
1 Tsuchiya, Takao, “An Economic History of Japan,” TASJ, 2nd Ser., XV (1937), 158–166, 247-248Google Scholar; Ike, Nobutaka, “Taxation and Landownership in the Westernization of Japan,” Journal of Economic History, VII (Nov. 1947), 161–162 Google Scholar; Norman, E. H., Japan's Emergence as a Modern State (New York, 1940), pp. 20–24, 68-69Google Scholar; and Honjo, Eijiro, The Social and Economic History of Japan (Kyoto, 1935), pp. 230–252 Google Scholar. I am deeply indebted for intellectual sustenance to my colleagues of the Japan S and to Ramon Myers, Kosaku Yamaguchi, and D. M. Cooper.Google Scholar
2 Norman, pp. 71-72, 75-79, Ch. v; Ike, pp. 166-168.
3 Much of this analysis will have as its point of departure Dr. Norman's study which has so profoundly influenced Japanese as well as western scholarship. While my criticisms of Norman may seem harsh, I still feel that no student of the field can ignore the debt of gratitude owed to his pioneering study.
4 This failing is compounded by the moral overtones which seem to have infected virtually all writings on this period. There is always a note reflecting concern for the “poor [i.e., pathetic] peasant” which seeps through as the residue of a liberal-humanitarian morality that has no place in an historical study. One notable exception to this stricture is William W. Lockwood's recent study, The Economic Development of Japan: Growth and Structural Change, 1868-1938 (Princeton, 1954).
5 Tsuchiya Takao and Okazaki Saburō, Nihon shihonshugi hatlatsu shi gaisetsu [An Introduction to the History of the Development of Japanese Capitalism] (Tokyo: Yūhikaku, 1937), pp. 217-218. The example can also be found in Norman, p. 154, n. 34.
6 Norman, p. 144.
7 Tsuchiya and Okazaki, p. 218. There are certain misprints in Norman's use of the table (p. 154), and I have referred to the original source for the correct version. Norman's version contains a confusing numerical error. (Tenant's rent in 1881 should be .681 instead of .661 koku of rice.) There is also an important error involving the unit of cultivation. Norman's example purports to refer to a field of one chō. The data properly refer to a field of one tan (
of a chō).
8 Shigeto Tsuru, “The Development of Capitalism and Business Cycles in Japan, 1868-1897,” (unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, 1940, Harvard University), p. 203. Any formula for calculating the land value would be equally satisfactory for my purposes.
9 In this example, I am assuming stable productivity during the period. Because I am interested in what could have happened to various groups in the agricultural sector, I am including an analysis of the condition of the owner-occupier who would be distinguished by laying claim to all product except that portion used to pay taxes.
10 My analysis assumes that all transactions are in the money sector. All product is sold on the market and all commodities required are bought on the market. This is a bold assumption, but it simplifies the analysis without affecting its main theme.
11 It is at this point that so many scholars, focusing on relative shares and not on incomes, have gone astray. It is true, of course, that relative shares would be important for certain issues of social behavior with which I am not concerned.
12 This occurred despite the fact that his share of the physical product fell from 67.3 per cent to 60.53 per cent of the total output.
13 The issue is not significantly affected by the fact that the tenant's share of the crop was higher in 1881 than in 1873. It stands to reason that even if his share had remained constant at 32 or 33 per cent (productivity remaining unchanged), he would have gotten higher prices for his share and thus been better off in income terms. It is the ignoring of this phenomenon that weakens Ike's analysis. See Ike, p. 170. (I make no reference in this essay to Ike's more recent volume, The Beginnings of Political Democracy in Japan [Baltimore, 1950], inasmuch as the economic analysis there [pp. 72-83, 139-147] is reproduced virtually without change from the 1947 article.)
14 Col. 2 is taken from Table I, line b. Col. 3 is taken from Tsuru, p. 268. Cols. 4, 5, and 6 are derived by dividing the index of money income (Table II, cols. 14, 15, and 16) by the wholesale price index. There are a great many technical difficulties about using the wholesale price index in this sort of situation, but for my purposes they can be ignored.
15 Tokyo rice prices fluctuated differently than did the price of rice used in this example. H,ad the tenant been selling his rice in the Tokyo market, his position would not have deteriorated to this extent. In fact, his real income would have still been 21 per cent higher in 1885 than in 1873.
| Year | Tokyo Rice Price (Yen per Koku) | Index of Tokyo Rice Prices (1873 = 100) | Real Income of Tenant (1873 = 100) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1873 | 3.86 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
| 1881 | 10.51 | 272.0 | 191.3 |
| 1885 | 6.32 | 163.6 | 120.8 |
Tokyo rice prices are taken from Paul Mayet, Agricultural Insurance in Organic Connection with Savings-Banks, Land-Credit, and the Commutation of Debts (London, 1893), p. 330.
16 Based on the productivity data in Japanese Crop and Livestock Statistics, 1878-1960, SCAP, Natural Resources Section, Report No. 143 (Tokyo, 1951), p. 19.
17 One could, of course, argue that if our tan was more productive in the first place, it would continue to be more productive than the all-Japan average. However, by assuming a smaller productivity increase, I am erring on the cautious side.
18 At one point Norman recognizes this (p. 156).
19 That this judgment is very conservative is suggested by evidence cited in Japanese Agricultural Land Statistics, SCAP, Natural Resources Section, Report No. 101 (Tokyo, 1948), p. 46. Between 1873 and 1885 the average yield of middle-class paddy fields in Japan increased from 1.312 to 1.672 koku per tan (27.4 per cent). At the same time, the share of product transferred from tenant to landlord decreased from 68 to 58 per cent. Using the rice prices from Table I, the tenant in 1885 had a money income 115.3 per cent higher and a real income 60.6 per cent higher than in 1873.
20 It is interesting at this point to compare this analysis with Norman, p. 144, n. 15. His sweeping generalization ignores the vastly complex process at work.
21 All that would have happened would have been that tenants would have had to curtail expenditures, draw on savings (if any), or wander off in search of new occupations.
22 Ike, pp. 165-166; Tsuru, p. 57; Mayet, pp. 220-221; Norman, p. 156. This situation would, however, not have affected the tenant at all because he paid his rent in kind and he had no land tax to pay. Thus, there was no direct pressure on him to engage in this distress dumping. “Payment in kind shifts the risks of price fluctuation to the landowner. This circumstance may have been beneficial to the small tenant farmer in the past.…” Nasu, S., Aspects of Japanese Agriculture (New York, 1941), p. 143 Google Scholar.
23 Ike, pp. 165-166.
24 Robertson-Scott, J. W., The Foundations of Japan (New York, 1922), p. 76 Google Scholar; and Trewartha, G. T., Japan: A Physical, Cultural, and Regional Geography (Madison, 1945), p. 220 Google Scholar.
25 Ike, p. 166.
26 It is possible that Tokyo prices in March and April showed the effects of earlier distress selling in other localities. This is a point that would need clarification.
27 Gubbins, J. H., The Making of Modern Japan (London, 1922), pp. 102, 104.Google Scholar
28 Mayet, pp. 228, 221-222; Ike, p. 169.
29 Ike admits the validity of this point in his discussion of the above-mentioned modifications of the date on which the tax had to be paid. “After 1878 the need for such palliatives became less for a few years since the rise in the price of rice improved the economic position of the agricultural population.… Since the tax on land stayed fixed, all those who owned land were able to profit.…” (pp. 169-170).
30 Tsuru, p. 57.
31 Takizawa, Matsuyo, The Penetration of Money Economy in Japan (New York, 1927)Google Scholar.
32 Localized crop failures could have had a serious effect on the groups involved, but even here the effects of price fluctuations would have made the results varied.
33 Norman, pp. 164-165. See also Ike, pp. 168-169.
34 Asakawa, K., “Notes on Village Government in Japan after 1600,” JAOS, XXXI (1911), 175 Google Scholar; John Henry Wigmore, “Materials for the Study of Private Law in Old Japan,” Part I, p. 114, Part V, pp. 48-63,77-78, in TASJ, XX, Suppl. (1892); Grinnan, R. B., “Feudal Land Tenure in Tosa,” TASJ, XX (1893), 241, 243Google Scholar; Takizawa, pp. 71-72, 76, 98; Tsuchiya, pp. 168-169; Smith, T. C., “The Japanese Village in the Seventeenth Century,” Journal of Economic History, XII (Winter 1952), 3–4, 12Google Scholar; and Hugh Borton, “Peasant Uprisings in Japan of the Tokugawa Period, TASJ, 2nd Ser., XVI (1938), 43, 72, 81.
35 Norman, p. 42, n. 81. Dr. Norman makes a serious error at this point, arguing “the effect of foreign imports in forcing up prices.…” It is clear that the flooding of Japan with cheap, machine-made foreign products caused a sharp decline in the prices of these goods. For a correct analysis of the impact of foreign supplies and foreign demand in Japan, see Allen, G. C., A Short Economic History of Modern Japan, 1867-1937 (London, 1946), p. 23 Google Scholar.
36 Allen, pp. 23, 32-33; and Lockwood, pp. 17-18, 336-337.
37 Ike, p. 177.
38 Norman, pp. 147-148, n. 24.
39 Norman, p. 148, n. 24.
40 Between 1873 and 1887 land under cultivation seems to have increased slightly. At the same time, the number of farm households declined from 5,640,000 to 5,518,000 (Japanese Agricultural Land Statistics, p. 6). It is most probable that my analysis applies best to the inflationary period through 1881. The traditional interpretation would probably be more accurate during the deflationary period 1881-85, but even during this period the situation would be intricate.
41 Mayet, p. 64. The data can also be found in Norman, p. 145.
42 In fact, the data show an increase of 84.7 per cent in mortgages between 1879 and 1881 (the period of inflation) and only a 32.9 per cent increase between 1881 and 1883 (the period of deflation). This suggests that during the earlier period, when price relationships were favorable, peasants went into debt to expand their activities. The mortgage, in other words, is not necessarily the symbol of oppression.
43 Mayet, p. 127.
44 Norman, pp. 144-147.
45 See Tsuru, p. 74.
46 Robertson-Scott, Appendix, p. 376.
47 Norman, p. 137. This is, of course, recognizably false and is so accepted by virtually all scholars including Norman when they discuss the last decades of the Tokugawa era. But it is a myth which lurks behind much of the analysis of the Meiji period, the myth of a “paradise lost.”
48 Smith, pp. 10-11.
49 If it is true that large-scale tenancy was in fact a hang-over from the Tokugawa period, the proper criticism of the Restoration leaders is not that their policy created a tenancy but rather that their policy did not eliminate it.
50 Ike, p. 169.
51 Norman, p. 72.
52 Norman, pp. 71-77, 169.
53 Ishii, Ryoichi, Population Pressure and Economic Life in Japan (Chicago, 1937), pp. 14–16.Google Scholar
54 Ishii, pp. 31-37. See Orchard, J. E., Japan's Economic Position (New York, 1930), p. 17 Google Scholar; and Lockwood, p. 143. There is some serious doubt about the extent of the institution of infanticide. See Tauber, Irene B., “Japan and Korea: Population Growth,” in Williamson, H. F. and Buttrick, J. A., eds., Economic Development: Principles and Patterns (New York, 1954), p. 438.Google Scholar
55 On feudal exactions, two convenient sources are D. B. Simmons, “Notes on Land Tenure and Local Institutions in Old Japan,” ed. Wigmore, TASJ, XIX (1891), 37-270; and Wigmore, “Materials…”
56 Norman, pp. 68-69, n. 54.
57 Lockwood, p. 476.
58 The secret which distinguishes the career of the Japanese agriculturist from his alter ego in India during the same interval lies in the rather impressive increases in agricultural productivity which occurred in a relatively brief period.