Expenditures of the Russo-Japanese war / by Gotaro Ogawa.

142 ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR

more than doubled as a result of the increased levies imposed
for financing the war with Russia. Therefore, in thirteen
years, from I893-94 to I906-7, the tax revenues advanced
more than four and one-half times. The volume of national
income, on the other hand, expanded more than four and onehalf times in the ten years before the war with Russia, so that
it appears that the additional taxation enforced during this
war was no intolerable burden on our national economy,
though undoubtedly it was sudden and serious enough. It
must be noted, however, that while the frequent increase of
taxation carried out before the war had begun to disturb the
unity in our system of taxation, the large increases imposed
after its outbreak threw the whole system, disorganized
already, into a state of greater confusion. As a consequence,
the distribution of fiscal burdens became more and more unequal, beginning to tell on the people as a heavy exaction.
We shall now classify the taxes into three groups, i.e., taxes
on receipts, taxes on consumption, and taxes on traffic, and
study the changes in the fiscal burden brought about by the
additional taxation during the war.
Taxes on receipts
In our system of taxation, the taxes on receipts comprise
the land tax, the business tax (including the patent-medicine
tax and the mining tax, which are special business taxes), and
the income tax, all of which were increased on account of the
war.
The land tax is an old institution, the rate in former days
being "four-tenths to the government and six-tenths to the
people." They were accustomed to this rate and it was felt
as a comparatively light burden. This fact had invited frequent increase in the land tax. Moreover, agriculture in this
country had nearly reached the limit of intensive cultivation,
leaving small room for further development. Due to these
circumstances, the opportunity of increasing this tax was limited. On the contrary, the income and business taxes, which
were created after the Imperial Restoration of I868, had am