The aims of this paper examine the historical character of rural community, and the changes of the communal relations of members by the rural policy in pre-war time. The prototype of rural community is "administrative village" which was formed by the shogunate state in 17 century. The village consisted of independent and modernized farmer's families, but village members had communal and medival relation with each other. This dual character of village were corresponded to the same character of the shogunate state. There were "bilateral relations" between village and state, and depended on each other. It is important that the village strongly regulated its members by self-restricted regulation of members. The home living improvement policy in 1930's aimed to rationalize farmer's traditional life style in rural community. At the same time, this policy made the traditional regulation abilities of community tight because this policy was carried out depended on it's relations in community. The economic control policy in war-time changed the class order of farmers in community and made the traditional relations loose. But this policy also carried out depended on the traditional regulation abilities in community and made it tight. Thus, the rural policy in pre-war time had dual and contrastive characters, and the regulation abilities of community were maintained and supported by rural policy.

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The author undertook this study to help resolve issues in the socioeconomic history of modern and contemporary village settlements in Japan. Analyses were made of their administrations and policies that responded to capitalism; industrial association-induced business; and social relationships between Japan's national government, towns and villages (administrative village), and village settlements in regard to social issues. The results are summarized as follows: [1] In early modern Japan, towns and villages were established as official local government units with important roles. They consisted of various types of settlements, including "Mura," named by the author, and these settlements corresponded to "agricultural settlements" comparable to the current census of agriculture and forestry. The historical definition of the local governmental system was established in a way that included the development of credit unions of settlements and the member election of a village assembly by the Mura unit. This is a direct criticism of Saito et al's study on self-governing village settlements. This study assumed "Oaza" (almost equal to modern villages governed by "Han," or prefecture) to be a modern and contemporary village settlement, resulting in an extremely fixed concept of a rural community. [2] The author showed the historical meaning of the 1930s from the aspect of village settlements. A structural change in the scheme of towns and villages and in agricultural policies leading to the present situation occurred in this period. This change brought on a reorganization of political relations between towns and villages and village settlements, a revised scheme of village settlements, and a request for villages to perform a new function. Consequently, the 1930s was a starting point for the relationship between the nation and towns and villages and village settlements; i.e., it may be called the establishment of towns and villages if the system of town and village in the Meiji Era was called the formation of towns and villages. [3] The author revealed the effects of the organization of agricultural cooperative associations on the structure of Mura. This confirms the appropriateness of village function. A village settlement managed by an agricultural cooperative association in the Hokkaido district, which was moderately flexible and free from the tradition of seigneur governance, adjusted to modern capitalism in the 1930s better than to Mura in the Kinki district, which conformed to Oaza. All these conclusions reveal the theoretical and empirical issues of this study on self-governing village settlements.

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The paper aims to explain the characteristic of village in Hokkaido as the Japanese internal colony, concentrating its functions in terms of political, economical and sociological background. Agricultural Technology Improvement Action Union (ATIAU)-based villages formed the profession groups for agricultural production, and were consisted of the massive middle scale farmers which developed between the wars in Hokkaido. Thus, the occasion when each farm management accommodated to agricultural polices, such ATIAU had a high affinity for them. Furthermore, because the farm income and the agricultural cooperative regulate mutually, when an agricultural coop accommodate the introduction of a police to regional farmers' condition, the profession group(ATIAU) had the strong partnership with such coop. For empiric study, I trace over the evolution of one village, especially of an ATIAU since 1920s until today in the business area of Fukagawa-city Agricultural Cooperative, where has been conducting the own polices. I show the high receptiveness of such policy by the ATIAU, and in doing so I illustrate the feature of ATIAU-based village as profession group.

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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the formation processes of grassland in dairy farming in post-war cultivated high-land dynamically, paying attention to decision-making by the leader of farmers, based on the case study in 0 village, Seiyo city Ehime prefecture. To achieve above-mentioned purpose, firstly, I grasped social and economic trend in 0 village before the war, and clarified the factors which affect the formation of grassland after the war. Secondly, I divided the formation processes of grassland after the war into four periods;(1)the period of trial crops (1946 -58),(2) the early years of introduction of dairy farming (1959-69), (3) the period of enlargement of grassland (1970-82), (4) the period of completion of grassland infrastructure(after 1983),and clarified the characteristic of grassland utilization in each period. Now, in 0 village ,high rate of self-sufficiency in fodder is realized by many-sided utilization of the three types of grasslands ( grassland owned by individual farmer, grassland owned by village, grassland cultivated by government). And the stable grassland infrastructure in 0 village have been formed by the geographical and historical conditions peculiar to high-land, the various political supports after the war, and the ability of leaders who accept the political supports positively and enlighten farmers.

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This article is considered concerning the market correspondence, which relates to the export of the wheat commodity in the late of 19 century in Russia. The contents of this article are as follows. The international competition, related to the wheat commodity in the West European markets, and the structural reorganization of the flour milling industry in the consumption area were compelled Russia to the position as raw materials supply country. In such situations, the movements of the quality control of the wheat export commodity appeared in Russia. As a conclusion, such movements had the advance character, but did not become organizational ones. However, it became the preparation which is connected to the formation of management of the grain trade which is developed in the beginnings of 20 century.

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In civilization and enlightenment period, gyunabe became popular, and for common people meat practically meant for gyunabe. Gyunabe inherited the way of cooking and the style of eating of kusurigui, most typical form of eating meat before the Restoration. But it became a symbol of civilization and enlightenment. The new government was encouraging eating meat, at that time. The Emperor Meiji first ate meat in 1872. He ate meat as Western food, not gyunabe, and the government regarded meat as beef and mutton. That is to say, the government considered that eating meat was a variety of Western civilization. I must add that besides gyunabe and Western food, there was another style of eating meat, a stewed meat stand. That was regarded as the food for the poor. Some reasons made it possible that eating meat was accepted as gyunabe. In the first place, people associated eating meat with civilization. The civilization included both Westernization and rationalities. The former couldn't have effect on people had ill feeling for Western. But the later was accepted more generally. In early modern times, to eat meat was thought disgusting conduct. Rational explanations were worked out to deny such a thought as superstition. Nutritional thinking also supported gyunabe boom. And, appetite was suppressed before Meiji, but after the Restoration, people could enjoy eating delicious things. This is also an important change. At that time, ranking formed among meat. The meat of wild animals seemed the lowest. Among the meat of livestock, beef was thought more refined than pork. Because pig was resemble to wild boar, eaten as kusurigui, and pork was associated with Ryukyu or Asia in spite of beef was associated with Western. As stated above, gyunabe was ranked higher than stewed meat stands. One of the reasons was rationalities, that was made valid by Western civilization. So Western food came higher rank.

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One of the important roles of a village in a developing economy is to discipline the behavior of economic agents and to provide governance for economic trade. Comparing with the developing countries today, villages in developing Japan had been successful in governing economic transactions and the village itselves. The autonomous village theory indicates the characteristics of the Japanese villages and suggests some points to consider the difference between Asian and Japanese villages from a historical perspective. This note interprets the autonomous village with the framework of microeconomics and reviews the theory from the perspectives of development economics. From the microeconomics point of view, autonomous village can be understood as an organization that provides institutions of economic governance under social connectedness. I then try to complement the theory by reconsidering the historical significance of the autonomous village with respect to the induction of informal institutions through the Murauke system in Tokugawa period, and the transition of community governance regimes. I argue that the Murauke system was an important starting point for the formation and development of the autonomous village since it demands the village to preserve its agricultural production and to accommodate tax payments, which in turn, induces institutions that support these demands.

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