lo AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



heads were completely turned. It is no wonder then that the 

 peasants looked upon the new revenue system as only increasing 

 their burdens, and accepted it with distrust and ill-will. It was 

 nevertheless carried out, and in the following way. 



On the basis of the old division of arable land into rice land (ta) 

 and dry-farming land (hata), and of the supposition that the pro- 

 duct of a cho of the former should be reckoned equal to that of 

 2*6 cho of the latter, the Government, in 1873, taxed not only the 

 value of the average harvest-returns, but also the land-value in the 

 several ken, and determined then to raise 3 per cent, of this basal 

 value as a yearly state tax. The proportion was, on January 4th, 

 1877, reduced to 2 J per cent. To this general State tax one must 

 now add, however, the district, or ken tax, which varies from \ to 

 2\ per cent, of the land value, thus in general corresponding as 

 to its objects to our district and communal tax, and to which 

 also all institutions (theatres, etc.) and persons that serve for the 

 entertainment and pleasure of the public had to contribute. 



Liebscher ^ says with reference to this land-tax, — which, while 

 nominally 2\ per cent, is really from 3 to 5 per cent, of the value 

 of the land, when the ken tax is counted in, — that it would be in 

 other countries too high to collect ; but that the possession of land 

 means to the Japanese farmer something quite different from what 

 it does to us. " With us, a workman can afford to pay a far higher 

 price or rent, than a rich farmer, for a piece of land, which he can 

 cultivate in his leisure hours, and for whose manuring and working 

 he need be at no care or expense. Thus, too, the soil has a much 

 greater worth to the Japanese peasant than is expressed by the 

 money value of the crops possible for him to get from it, being 

 absolutely necessary for his existence." Nevertheless, the peasant 

 insurrections in quite recent times, with their causes, show that the 

 present method of taxation has its hard features ; that the tax 

 cannot be gathered after bad harvests, and may rouse the people 

 to desperation. 



According to those investigations and decrees of the Japanese 

 mmistry of finance, in 1873, which had reference only to the old 

 O-yashima, the area amounted to : — 



5*celand 2,539,090 cho = 2,5 18, 106 ha.^ 



Dry-farmland 1,732,449 „ =1,718,122 „ 



Total cultivated land . . 4,271,539 ch6 = 4,236,228 ha. 



The average value of rice land was : 



5 3 1-24 yen = 2 1 24-96 marks per cho (or hectare), and that of the hata, 

 20672 „ = Zie^Z „ 



The gross product of the average harvest was reckoned at 1177 

 per cent, of the selling piece of land = 62-53 yen per cho, for rice 



\ "Japans Landwirthschaftliche Verhaltnisse." Tena, 1882 

 2 ha = hectare. 



