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

CHAPTER VII

EFFECTS ON AGRICULTURE
GENERAL REMARKS
The greatest burdens of the Russo-Japanese War, as of all
other wars, fell upon the shoulders of the farming class. The
engine of destruction is operated by means of conscription or
"blood tax," and by means of taxation and other pecuniary
burdens on the nation. And the incidence of conscription fell
most severely on the peasants, as will be explained later on.
At the same time there is no ground for the assumption that
the incidence of taxes and other pecuniary burdens was lighter
on them than on other classes. The war threw great burdens on other classes, to be sure, but they were either benefited by the war or else able to seize the opportunity of
promoting their own interests. For example, those pursuing trade or industry could increase their earnings either by
the manufacture of, or transactions in, war supplies, by the
manufacture of, or dealings in, articles for export, as our
foreign trade increased through the war, or by meeting the
new demands arising at home through revival of the home
market. They thus added to their incomes according to the
measure of their efforts. Though the war exacted heavy
sacrifice from them, it gave no small amount of benefit to
them. The case was quite different with the agricultural
population. Their burdens were especially grievous, but
they could derive nothing from the war, and there was almost
no other way of earning money than by obtaining a determined amount of crop through tilling a definite area of land
and selling the crop at an almost fixed price. No monetary
profits were brought to them by the war, and there was no
method of filling up the deficiency in labor created by the
mobilization of workers. There was no way left them but
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