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

EFFECTS ON PUBLIC FINANCE

I43

pie room for growth through the development of trade and
industry. It is evident, therefore, that even if these taxes
were increased at a uniform rate each of them would show a
different rate of increase in revenue. Inquiry into the conditions of taxes on receipts during the war discloses the fact
that, as regards the land tax, the import duties on rice, hulled
and unhulled, as well as the high price of this and other
cereals, gave protection to payers of the land tax, which circumstances served to prevent a decrease of revenues from
this source. But, on the other hand, the termination in 1904-5
of the temporary increase of the land tax enforced before the
war resulted in a direct diminution in receipts from this tax.
Moreover, good crops in 1904 indirectly increased the yield
from the principal and additional rates of the land tax, while
bad crops in the following year had an adverse effect on the
yields from this source. In the final result, the revenue from
the land tax showed the smallest percentage of increase.
However, the case was different with the income and business
taxes; for though the war dealt a heavy blow to industries not
connected with the war-time demands, it had a very favorable
effect on other industries, and our industry and commerce as
a whole was never in a state of depression during the war.
Consequently, the revenues from these sources recorded a
large proportion of increase. The percentages of increase in
yield from taxes on receipts, as well as the relations of the
principal and additional parts of these taxes, are indicated in
Table A at the end of this chapter.1
Taking as Ioo the yields of different taxes on receipts in
I903-4, the fiscal year preceding the war, the percentages of
the rise in revenues for the four succeeding years were, as the
above table shows, 30, 71.6, 80.2, and 81.2 for the land tax;
72.4, I59, I74.4, and 185.3 for the business tax; and 74.2,
182.2, 219.3, and 230.9 for the income tax. The three taxes
on receipts taken as a whole for these years averaged 41.1,
97.1, II104, and 1I3.8 per cent. As regards the proportions
of the principal and increased parts of these taxes, the latter
1Post, pp 154-5