(1) Formerly the production of Japanese hand-made paper in Gifu Prefecture was concentrated in the valleys of the Ibi and Nagara rivers, but is now shifted into Makitani, the basin of the river Itadori.
(2) The reason of this change can be attributed to the quality of water there, and the devices in the process of manufacture and management. Traditionally, Oyakata, the managers, collected the sons of farmers to work at the paper workshops, but the changes of systems are affecting the old customs. The technique of paper-making has been delivered from a generation to the filial generation, and the group of people engaged in this work has been firmly fixed.
(3) Remoteness of this area from the labor market helped the owners keep the low wages.
(4) Gradually people engaged in this business came to be compelled to change their job on account of the changes in the ways of consumption as well as the competition from mechanization. Usually they chose other businesses which are in many ways like the old one, namely such are small home industries using very cheap labor.
(5) We can say that the low waged labor system is the primary factor that changed the location of the paper manufacture in this district. And the local characteristics of the labor system is also influenced by natural conditions such is the existence of good water both the surface and under ground, suited for the work, shortage of plains for arable land, and the remoteness of the district from the main labor market.
