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

CHAPTER VI

EFFECTS ON COMMUNICATIONS
GENERAL REMARKS
It was inevitable that the war should materially handicap
the means of communication, as was frequently mentioned in
the two preceding chapters. And the crippled communication facilities were responsible in turn for the rise in prices at
home, the wide difference of prices in different places, and
the depression of foreign trade, at least in the early stages of
the war. This handicapped state of communications can
be attributed to (I) the commandeering of all the important
means of communication for the transportation of troops and
war supplies; and (2) the restrictions placed on the free working of the means of transportation through danger and
through precautions arising out of the action of enemy warships. The first acted in the form of requisitions of railways,
ships, horses and wagons, while the second chiefly crippled
the steamship service. Thus, ordinary communication and
transportation in war time were disturbed in their various
branches, but we shall limit our observations to the most
important among them, i.e., the land or railway transportation and the sea or steamship service.
LAND TRANSPORTATION
It is hardly necessary to say that the general railway service
was hindered by military transportation. In January, I904,
a government order was issued, commandeering the railways
throughout the country. In the following month a great
movement of troops and war supplies was commenced; timetables were frequently revised not only for freight trains but
also for passenger trains, and finally the number of daily
trains was reduced, which led to the decrease in the ordinary
passenger and freight traffic. But this decrease was not alone
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