Charcoal-making in Japan is now on the decline, but it is one of the old and traditional industries in this country. It is worth noticing that the organization of the charcoal industry is closely related to village structure. Some observations have been made concerning this relationship by making Tsushima-Cho (Ehime-Prefecture) an object of study.
This study will throw light on the pecuiarities of this district. In this study the methods of organizing the charcoal industry have been classified according to the ways in which charcoalmakers get funds for buying wood. In this classification, there are four methods of financing the work; (I) independent charcoal-making……charcoal makers make with their own funds and send it to any destinations that they wish, (II) agricultural cooperative charcoal-making…they make charcoal by borrowing funds in advance from their agricultural association and forward it to the association, (III) charcoal-making by borrowing traders' money in advance……makers are compelled to forward the charcoal to the traders, and (IV) charcoal-making by ‘Yakiko’……charcoal-makers called ‘Yakiko’ governed by their traders called ‘Oyakata’ make their charcoal and it is divided between them. This form of making charcoal is of the most primitive type. Those who govern the makers grouped in III and IV above are fuel-dealers who carry the charcoal to Osaka. The type grouped in IV was overwhelmingly numerous before the War. After the War, types II and III have become more and more numerous, but type IV has still remained.
In this part of the country, as in such less advanced districts as the Tohoku District, Southern Kyushu and the mountainous regions in the Chugoku District, backward charcoal making ‘Yakiko systems’ still firmly survive. The main reasons why ‘Yakiko systems’ are still surviving are (a) the traditional village structure controlled by the old land system and (b) the backwardness of the villagers' thoughts. Several great land-owners had been in this district since the Edo era to the time of the post-war land reform, and farmers have more of less been dependent upon them. Most of the fields and forests are national or public property. Most of the privately-owned fields and forests are occupied by a small number of great farmers, and few of the common run of farmers possess large areas of fields and forests of their own. Poor charcoal-makers are forced to be dependent upon the external trading capital borrowed in advance, and they have been kept from becoming independent of it. ‘Yakiko systems’ are a mirror of the backwardness of this part of the country.
