Tenant Right in Postwar Japan

Abstract

In this paper, an attempt will be made, first, to elucidate the evolution of agricultural-land legislation and administration as regards the tenant right in the postwar years. Then the realities of the tenant right will be clarified with statistical data. An attempt will subsequently be made to clarify the Substances of the tenant right with the ownership of small land possession and also in minute agriculture. Finally, a study will be made of the way in which policy should be in relation to the cultivation right, while overviewing the development of agriculture in Japan. 1. The agriculturalland reform carried out shortly after World War II contributed to the dissolution of a semifeudalistic system of land ownership by parasitic landowners and the establishment of owner farmers in great numbers. As the agriculturalland reform had not proved thorough-going in some aspects, however, the landowner-tenant relationship extensively remained even after the agriculturalland reform. For this reason, control over the tenancy of agriculturallands in the postwar years was stepped up with a primary view to protecting the right to cultivate the tenanted farmers left after the land reform, and at the same time control was similarly exercised over the tenanted lands which had been newly contracted after the land reform. Under this system, strict restrictions were imposed on the rescission of contracts on the tenancy of farms and all cancellations were made subject to approval of the Prefectural Governor. This system represented a powerful protection of the tilling right, as it turned out to be poles apart from the farmland tenancy restrictions stipulated under the Agricultural Land Adjustment Law which was enacted under the semi-feudalistic system of land ownership by parasitic landowners. At this time, however, administrative guidance on agriculturallands did not uphold the notion that tenancy contracts could not annuled on condition of compensation for the discontinuation of farming work. Nevertheless, a situation became widespread throughout Japan where values were set on the cultivation right. Moreover, the prices featured marked regional differentials, as they reflected the influences of the tenant right which had been in practice since before the land reform and also the results of the administrative guidance on lands. With respect to the pricing of the tilling right, the following explanation was made by officials in charge of agriculturalland administration. Price of land for one's own farming=price of tenanted land + price of tenant right. In other words, it was emphasized that the tenant right was re-established as that of something priced by placing a differential between the price of the land for one's own farming and that of the tenanted land. Later, this notion was introduced for an assessment of the tenant right in relation to the tax system and a wide variety of public construction-undertakings with the consequence that the practice of pricing the tenant right became widespread. 2. In the following, an attempt will be made to cast light on the economic factors inherent to the prices of the tenant right. In the model equation of C+V+M=W in a system of capitalistic tenant agricultural management, there is need to sustain the level of urban workers' wages(V_1). Capital also must retain a mean profit(P). Cosequently, the land rent(R), which represents the amount gained by deducting the mean profit(P) from the surplus(M), belongs to the landowner (M-P=R). The controlled rents for tenancy determined by the Government in 1955 were based on this concept. However, a competition always takes place for the acquisition of a farmland in a system of land ownership by owner farmers whose management is petty in scale, with the consequence that the wages of cultivators are cut down to the minimal level required for the reproduction of labor force……i.e., the level of temporary

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