The dominant land use in northern and eastern districts of Hokkaido is long-ley rotation-ploughing and cropping for one or four years and then grass for anything from four to ten years as in the western counties of Britain. The main condition for long-ley rotation is that, with the dampness of the climate, the better or more nutritious species of grass tend to die out after a few years. Gradually the grass-leys deteriorate and the better species of grasses are replaced by poorer. It is then time to plough again. Temporary grass-leys alternate with tillage crops (maize, root crops).Climate conditions favour long-ley rotation. But, it was not until 1955 that the system of long-ley rotation became widespread in Hokkaido, where the development of the system has been encouraged by the public authorities. This development may be explained by the stimulus of subsidy payments for ploughing up grassland. Over large areas of Hokkaido, where heavy clays prevail, hence costly for the farmer to drain and work, the development of long-ley rotation is based on the improved land (drainage, soil dressing, etc.).

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In this paper, regional policy is defined as a policy for solving inter-regional problems, rather than intra-regional problems. Regional policy is thus considered to aim at reducing regional unbalances. This paper examines the changing status and character of regional policy in Canada after World War II. In the third section, general trend of regional policy in the country was outlined. Canada's regional policy entered its preparatory period in the late 1950s,when regional problems began to be recognized, and the Federal Government introduced some programs in the beginning of the l960s. Then, regional policy was steadily reinforced during the Pearson and Trudeau Administrations, and was at its peak around 1970. Mainly because of the first oil crisis in 1974, however, the Trudeau Administration changed the existing system and developed decentralized way of policy-making: after this change, the policy certainly maintained a high status. The recession in the early 1980's, however, led to a great retreat of the policy, although the Liberal Party was the ruling party at the time. Since the Mulroney Administration of the Progressive Conservative Party, characterized by the ideology of new conservatism, appeared in 1984, regional policy has been resigned to a low status. In the fourth section, special attention was paid to the DREE (Departmentof Regional Economic Expansion) Era, l969〜1981, when regional policy gained most high status in the postwar period. It was due to the conditions such as good performance of Canadian economy, the Liberal Party as ruling party then and Trudeau's attitude of regarding national unity as important. The policy had fundamentally different features between the early years (l969〜l973) and the later years (1974〜1981). While the policy focussed on decreasing regional disparities in the former period, it was primarily concerned with development of provinces, as suggested by introduction of the joint measure by the Federal and Provincial Governments in the later period. In the concluding section, it is demonstrated that the rise and fall of regional policy have, to a great extent, been determined by the economic performance of the country: the status of the policy is relatively high in the period of good economic performance. It is also noted that political condition which party came to power and socio-cultural dimension such as the movement of Quebec's separatism did affect the priority of the policy. Moreover, considering that the regional policy has only played a marginal role in the overall context of the country's policy and that its long-run perspective was missing, it is permissive to conclude that the regional policy to aim at reducing regional disparities have had no sufficient institutional framework.

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The author examined the spatial pattern of multi-locational enterprises and its time-space relation with regional systems, in order to clarify the mode of industrial expansion through the rapid economic growth period in Japan after World War II. Head offices, branch offices, plants and R & D (research and development)facilities of the electric machinery enterprises in 1960 and 1990 are mapped based on the data regarding their location, year of establishment, and size and output of their plants, collected by questionnaire and monograph survey on 80 major enterprises in Japan. A comparative analysis on distribution of the enterprises at the pre-and post- economic growth periods, brought the following results; 1) Most of the head offices of the enterprises have concentrated in Tokyo metropolitan area, and their branch offices have been set up in the regional metropolitan centers (Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima, Fukuoka) to form a nation-wide-system. Over half of branch offices also located at those cities. Under the staple branch offices also at the three metropolitan cities, Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, subordinate branch offices have been set up. 2) Following the nine industrial categories, all of the enterprises belonging to the General Electric Equipment type and the Home Electric Equipment type have set up their offices at every regional metropolitan center. On the other hand,the enterprises belonging to the Heavy Electric Equipment type and the Measuring Instrument type have not always established their branch offices at every regional metropolitan center, and instead, more than half of them have thier branch offices at other cities specialized in certain manufacturing activity relevant to the category. 3) Electric machinery plants have been established mainly in east Japan,while their R & D facilities have been set up around the head offices. Most of the plants have been agglomerated around the three metropolitan cities since 1960. However, some of the enterprises of the General Electric Equipment and Home Electric Equipment have developed their plants at the regional metropolitan centers. On the other hand, the plants of Heavy Electric Equipment have been concentrated around their head offices, as the size of the enterprises is smaller than that of other categories and the number of their plants is limited. Thus, the distribution pattern of branch offices and plants of the electric machinery enterprises in Japan shows a difference according to the categories stated above.

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The Japanese-Brazilian and-Peruvian (Nikkei) immigrant workers have increased drastically since 1987. They take unskilled jobs in the manufacturing firms located in the surrounding areas of metropolitan regions. A questionnaire of firms, and interviews with some managers of the firms, employment agencies, and Nikkei workers were executed in Kamo area of Gifu prefecture, from September to November 1991 and in June 1992. The result is as follows: Shortage of manufacturing labor force has become severer since 1987 and it is made up by immigrant Nikkei workers. Some manufacturing firms had already hired seasonal domestic workers from peripheral regions, and moreover, they begin to recruit temporary laborers from foreign countries through employment agencies. Employment agencies play a role in supplying labor force to production process in factories, although job introduction by private agencies are prohibited by laws. The agencies invite Nikkei workers from Brazil or Peru, and take care of their living, such as housing and schooling for their children. There are some differences in employment polices among firms depending on their scale. Large firms control a component ratio of domestic and Nikkei workers. Since Nikkei workers seek more highly-paid jobs, their turnover is high Smaller firms have no choice but to employ Nikkei workers in relatively high rate because of a severe shortage of labor. However, both are reluctant to employ Nikkei workers directly in order to avoid troubles in sudden dismissal caused by recession. The legal status of Nikkei workers is weak, and they receive no official protecion through national and local governments. They are exployed by employment agencies, and get neither wage increase nor sexual equality in payment. In order to protect Nikkei workers, the Japanese government is strongly advised to establish laws and regulations that guarantee Nikkei workers' rights.

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