The Journal of Agrarian History
Online ISSN : 2423-9070
Print ISSN : 0493-3567
Volume 16, Issue 2
Displaying 1-7 of 7 articles from this issue
  • Article type: Cover
    1974 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages Cover2-
    Published: January 20, 1974
    Released on J-STAGE: October 30, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Tateshi Mori
    Article type: Article
    1974 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 1-16
    Published: January 20, 1974
    Released on J-STAGE: October 30, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The increasing destitution of agricultural labourers in the last quarter of 18th century had provoked manifold controversies and bred some remedies. The poor law system had been reorganized and social schemes providing for the less fortunate members of society were advocated. To make clear how these changes had taken place, there is none which deserves more careful investigation than the huge change which had been brought about in the condition of English rural labourers. Agricultural day labourers, who began to play more important part in the mixed farming, had fallen into the deteriorating condition of their livelyhood through (a) augmentation of seasonal partiality of the demand of agricultural labour, (b) shortening of the terms of employment and (c) the loss of common right and the decline of domestic industries. Their miserable condition had appeared sharply at the scarcity of corn in 1795 and two types of remedies were discussed and enforced. The allowance system, which was to relieve the poor within the poor law system, had developed and had been called the Speenhamland system. The allotment scheme which intended to give agricultural labourers small plots of land and social system of friendly societies and saving banks were another alternatives proposed. The latter remedies is different from the Speenhamland system in stressing the desirability to make labourers independent of the- public relief and advocating high productivity of employing such independent labourers. In order to create independent labourers, these schemes meant to let labourers be self-reliant by supplying the circumstances favourable for the encouragement of the spirit of independence still remaining in the mentality of the agricultural labourers. During the agricultural depression after Waterloo, the allowance system considered to cause the demoralization amongst the poor and the baneful effect on the labour productivity had declined, while the alternative remedies had developed. The poor law amendment act of 1834 was the zenith of this development.
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  • Hiroshi Nishikawa
    Article type: Article
    1974 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 17-35
    Published: January 20, 1974
    Released on J-STAGE: October 30, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The rationalization of the Japanese cotton spinning industry progressed very much in the 1920's. This meant a big change in the capital accumulation achieved by the cotton spinning monopoly enterprises up to then. This monopoly system in cotton spinning industry, the aim of which was the pursuit of high profit with monopoly prices, was compelled to face competiton with the "Zaikabo" (the cotton spinning industry in China), and moreover to compete with the imperialistic world Powers. This situation obliged the cotton spinning monopoly to construct a new system producing the high-quality products through the rationalization of management. However, this system was not constructed by an ordinary process in which machinery would have been introduced by additional investment, instead, it was done by labour fortification called "scientific management". The exploitation of the workers, e.g. extra night work, has become more rational since then, but at the same time this exploitation brought about a change in the former relations with employers. Therefore, this rationalization in the cotton spinning industry meant the reorganization of the old monopoly system into the new control system of monopoly. Under this control it was almost impossible for smaller cotton spinning companies to survive without striving to produce cotton thread as a main product, in turn this pushed them down to a lower class. This reorganization in the cotton spinning industry also changed the production-system in its biggest customer, the domestic cotton textile industry. These cotton textile producers, naturally, were put in keen competition with smaller cotton spinning companies for the cotton thread production. This competition also demanded the cotton textile producers to rearrange and to rationalize, they produced the wide-cloth and high-quality products with joint planning, etc. For this reason the domestic cotton textile producers became more positive about exporting their products. The contradictions accumulated in the cotton spinning industry found their solution in the market abroad through the above mentioned rationalization. After all, this rationalization process in the cotton spinning industry indicated the change of the reproduction-structure controlled by the monopoly system, namely it indicated the reorganization of the monopoly system which enabled capital accumulation under the new condition.
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  • Isao Otsuki
    Article type: Article
    1974 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 36-68
    Published: January 20, 1974
    Released on J-STAGE: October 30, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Chiba prefecture has the 10th largest acreage of arable land and it is said to be average agriculture district. Agricultural disticts in Chiba are composed of these three types (I) rice growing district in paddy field, (II) upland field district, (III) sericulture district. The development in those days was more remarkable in (II) and (III) types than in (I) type. The results of this research are as follows. (1) The large size of holding didn't always mean either the largeness of unit of farm management or the richness of farm household. The size of holdings was in inverse proportion to the income per acre determined by productivity of land, strength of land-ownership and the intensity of cultivation. These facts mean that the 'differenciation of peasantry' didn't appear in Chiba prefecture. (It might request some reconsideration upon the former studies of the 'differenciation of peasantry' in Japan.) (2) The agriculture in upland field has been explained to be self-sufficient. However, it had developed as the commercial farming growing wheat, sweet potatoes, soya beans and peanuts, from the latter period of Meiji, through the expansion of domestic and newly discovered foreign markets. It had not brought about capitalist farmers but large scale peasants. This results can be ascribed to the acute fluctuation of prices and the control of big merchants caused by narrowness and remoteness of the markets of those crops, and the existence of land-ownership. (3) The growth of the sericulture industry in the period of the World War I had brought about intensive agriculture, and small scale peasants had remarkably increased in number during the World War I. They had grown able to be independent only by the war boom of the sericulture industry.
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  • M. Fukushima
    Article type: Article
    1974 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 69-72
    Published: January 20, 1974
    Released on J-STAGE: October 30, 2017
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  • Article type: Appendix
    1974 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 73-78
    Published: January 20, 1974
    Released on J-STAGE: October 30, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Article type: Appendix
    1974 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 78-
    Published: January 20, 1974
    Released on J-STAGE: October 30, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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