Japan

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Dec, 2000 by Yoshisaburo Yamasaki, Robert V. Andelson

In 1878, the national land tax was reduced from three to 2.5 percent of capital value, but rents were not reduced for tenant farmers. The proclamation of the Constitution in 1889 institutionalized the political power of a landowning class that now held private legal title free of feudal obligations. Franchise in national elections was granted to males over the age of 25 who paid taxes at or above a specified minimum. Inasmuch as 97 percent of the electorate qualified on the basis of land tax rather than income tax payments, this gave landowners effective control of the Diet, where "their main interest was directed toward reducing their tax burden." [5] Independent smallholders, understandably, were no less zealous in this respect than were great landlords. [6] Accordingly, whereas in 1872, land taxes accounted for 72 percent of total government revenue, this share declined to about 46 percent in 1890, and again to 15 percent just prior to the First World War. It might, of course, be possible to interpret thi s decline in share to the parallel development of industry and consequent increase in the proportion of voters paying income tax. Yet this fails to explain why the fiscal surplus attributable to the reduced military spending occasioned by the London Naval Conference of 1930 [7] was used to lower the land tax even more drastically than before. In 1931 (the sixth year of Showa), the Land Tax Revision Act was replaced by the Land Tax Law (Chiso Ho), which mandated, instead of the previous tax on the capital value of land, a 3.8 percent levy on annual lease rent--an extremely smaller base.

The Meiji land tax made possible Japan's transformation into a modern capitalist power, but, as we have seen, only at great cost in human welfare. Fred Harrison's apt verdict provides a fitting coda to our consideration of the subject:

The Meiji land tax . . . bas been criticized on a number of counts. These criticisms . . . have been misdirected; they imply, or explicitly state, that the land tax per se is a deficient instrument for accomplishing the desired goals. But on the contrary, problems arose in Japan because the tax was technically inadequate and incomplete. [8]

II

Agricultural Land Reform under the Allied Occupation

BY THE ADVENT of World War II, concentration of agrarian land-ownership had become a major problem in Japan. Fifty percent of the farms were owned by absentee landlords, 70 percent of the farmers were tenants, and 68 percent of the total farm yield was paid to landlords in rent. Such circumstances, needless to say, had a disincentive effect upon agricultural production. And it takes no stretch of the imagination to surmise that this artificial contraction of lebensraum in a country where it was naturally in short supply exacerbated already existing widespread land-hunger and thus helped to fuel support for the militarist program of territorial expansion.

The Agricultural Land Adjustment Law (Nochi Chosei Ho) promulgated in 1938 (the 13th year of Showa, during the premiership of Prince Konoye), was a largely ineffectual effort to address the problem by encouraging independent cultivators, strengthening arrangements for the mediation of tenancy disputes, and establishing provisions to safeguard tenants' rights. [9]