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

242 ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR

AREA YIELDING THE EIGHT MAIN AND FIVE SPECIAL AGRICULTURAL
PRODUCTS, I90I-I907
Year Cho
I90 1................................................ 6,333,340
1902................................................ 6,313,901
I903................................................ 6,334,416
1904................................................ 6,309,139
1905................................................ 6,262,1 68
1906................................................ 6,303,422
I90 7................................................ 6,321,404

This kind of cultivated land was thus reduced by six
hundred to seven hundred thousand cho.
(2) The decline of by-products: As a result of the labor
shortage, home industry among the peasants was seriously
affected. Although there are no statistics available regarding the matter, a report of the Osaka Prefecture may
throw some light on it. It says in part that the peasants in
that prefecture had many branches of home industry, because
its capital, Osaka, is a great center of industry in Japan.
The lower classes, especially, depended on home industries
for their main income, but the war suddenly cut off their
earnings from this source owing to the retrenchment of
various industries and the shortage of labor.
The old people, women, and children had to work on the
farm and had little time to devote to home industry; hence
their poverty went from bad to worse. Senpoku district
had more labor to spare, and so its farming did not suffer from
the war, but its home industries in various branches were
greatly damaged. The farming population of Mishima
district suffered more or less for a time through shortage in
farm labor, but by stopping a part or the whole of the home
industries, or by doing the work only at night, they saved
their agricultural interests serious harm from the war.
(3) Transference of land ownership. This transference
had become increasingly frequent before the war, but the
tendency was considerably strengthened by the war. It was
due to (a) financial stringency among the peasants caused by
the subscriptions to national bonds and other pecuniary