Life During The Meiji Era
Agrarian images seem out of place in the highly urbanized and cosmopolitan society Japan has become. When the subject of Japan is broached these days, one is far more likely to think of bullet trains and robotics, the fashion industry, anime, and popular music idols than rustic villagers in sedge hats bent over a flooded rice paddy. In fact, the rural population in Japan has been steadily decreasing for several decades, and the challenge of how to stem the flow of young people to the cities or to lure new residents to take their places is heavy on the minds of local administrators.
Most of the most radical changes happened to Japan during the Meiji era. Then rural people were tightly tied with soil, the ground they stood on, the fields they walked through, even after death. Their lives depended on soil as they grew crop on the soil to survive, got resources from soil for trade, and were buried into the soil. Even though farmers could leave their lands and work in town and find a chance of becoming an up-class citizen, they in reality were as …show more content…
ordinary as the soil, at the bottom of the world, but having that trait of fortitude that enabled them to survive and transform Japan into what it is today.
“Meiji” period agrarian reform
The Agrarian reform of the "Meiji period" made by the aristocratic government was bourgeois in character. Former feudal lords received large cash payment compensation for their lands. In the village private ownership of land was established. However, the lack of land and overpopulation in the rural zone led to the spread of natural forms of rent and oppressive relations of tenants with landlords. However in his fiction novel “The Soil” Takashi Nagatsuka portrays another type of relations between the master and the tenant. This is especially visible throughout the whole book in the relations between Kanji and the master’s wife. Whenever Kanji stole something from them, if the situation got out of control, i.e. the police became involved, the master’s wife tended to come in and save the single father who got so accustomed to stealing. (Nagatsuka and Waswo, p.54-56, p.73-76)
The three-percent tax on land each year absorbed up to 50% of the gross income of the peasantry (Norman and Woods, p.91). Replacement of the natural form with the monetary tax system was extremely disadvantageous for the peasants, who had to immediately sell their crops at a low price in order to pay tax.
All this led to extreme volatility of small peasant farming in Japan, eased the usurious enslavement of the peasantry and the deprivation of lands. The role of moneylenders was often performed by Japanese landlords who increased their possessions, taking away the land of peasants as payment for debt. As the city could not produce enough demand for labor, the agrarian overpopulation led to inefficient fragmentation of land and very high rent (7 times as high as in England and 3.5 times as high as in Germany) (Norman and Woods, p.96).
However, changes in the socio-economic structure of the Japanese countryside led to a fairly rapid increase in agricultural production. If, within one hundred and fifty years the crop area did not exceed 3 million cho, after 5 years after the beginning of the agrarian reform they amounted to 3.8 million cho, and after 15 years – 4.2 million cho. Agriculture became more of a commodity (Norman and Woods, p.97). This was reflected in faster growth of major export crops: tea and silk. From 1868 to 1882, their exports increased almost two-fold.
The development of agriculture in Japan in the first 15 years of "Meiji" was stimulated by the fact that the government had covered spending by issuing paper money. This accounts for the high level of prices for agricultural products. But fixed according to the 80s the rate for hard currency had led to a reduction by more than twice in the price of rice and silk, and thus accelerated the ruin of the peasantry. In 1883 33 thousand farmers were driven from the land, in 1884 – 70 thousand, in 1885 – 108 thousand (Norman and Woods, p.97).
As a result, by 1905 only 30% of farms retained their ownership of the land retained, and 70% have become tenants renting land. Land rent under agrarian overpopulation was of higher profitability for the capitalist landowners. Therefore many entrepreneurs have sought to invest the excess profit in the ground to lease it.
Small peasant farms in Japan – causes and consequences of this phenomenon’s occurrence
The expropriation of the peasantry in Japan, unlike England, did not lead to the creation or increase in the average allotment of arable land. On the contrary (despite a slight increase in the average size of the allotment of arable land) was accompanied by a continuous distribution of fragmented rented plots of land cultivated by farmer-tenant families (Nagatsuka and Waswo, p.9). Takashi Nagatsuka in his fiction novel “The Soil” presents us his main character Kanji who distributed his crops on fragmented territories: “Lacking a plot of appropriate land nearby, he had set a row of cucumbers along the hedge… the squash he had planted next to the privy… only the eggplants had gone into his patch of dry land on the other side of the village…” (Nagatsuka and Waswo, p.9)
The extreme fragmentation of land is characteristic of Japanese agriculture, and had been preserved even after the establishment of private land ownership and the rapid expansion of the land lease. Land fragmentation was the result of an unusually high rent, which in some places (namely where rice fields were located) reached over a half of the total harvest. This issue is so important for the understanding of agrarian relations in Japan that we should subject it to further analysis. As the person who owned capital and land, specifically the merchants, moneylenders or rich peasants, could receive such a high return on invested capital in the ground in the form of rent, they had no incentive to ensure the transformation into agricultural entrepreneurs that would have owned farms with the aim of production of agricultural products for the market using hired labor.
In the then existing agrarian relations in Japan, the landowner, confident in getting such a high return on invested capital, would be very unwise to venture to organize capitalist production for profit, which could have been much lower than that which brought him rent. In other words, the excessively high rents destroyed the incentive for obtaining business profits. As a result, the land remained in the same position as it was in the period of feudalism – divided into tiny plots cultivated by peasants, the growing number of which resulted in an increase in demand for land and competition in the lease, thereby providing for the high level of rents. And this in turn led to the fragmentation of the leased land. To this must be added the strong attachment of the peasant to the land, which was consecrated by the work of their many ancestors.
In the struggle for survival on the land as the owner or co-owner, the peasants from time to time sold a few tsubo of land in order to pay off their debt on the land tax, pay the debts to the pawnbroker, to survive a tough year and cope with the difficulties caused by crop failure, possessive case of draft animals or natural disasters. Farmers parted with each piece of their land against their will. As a result, small owners further reduces the scope of their work on the remaining plot of land. “Once the farmers had paid their rents they owned, they were lucky to have enough left over to sustain them through the winter.” (Nagatsuka and Waswo, p.47) This illustrates the impact high rents had and what an obstacle it was to the development of purely capitalist relations in agriculture, whereas the extreme overcrowding of villages led to the preservation, and in some cases even to a decrease in the already small land sites which remained from the feudal period.
"The farmer himself understands how inconvenient and unprofitable such a system of agriculture is, but often a significant improvement in the status quo for a short period of time was not possible due to the established relations of ownership or lease," (Norman and Woods, p.98). And further: "In the period of the decline of feudalism there were small landowners; the scale of agricultural production remained as small as it was before; there still was a surplus of labor in the family; no significant changes happened in the village. The Japanese agriculture still retained its old form," (Norman and Woods, p.98). Thus, the peasant, wishing to ensure the subsistence level of the family, enhanced the intensification of their economy using each piece of land at their disposal to its full potential.
Fragmentation of land and the specific conditions prevailing in the Meiji agrarian reform when farmers paid exceptionally high rents and heavy land tax, the absence of development incentives by landowners, left a deep mark on agrarian relations in Japan. This question can be best examined by studying the social position of the Japanese peasant.
Social status of Japanese farmer-tenant
In Japan the peasants were not capitalist entrepreneur, as in other countries. But they cannot be considered as agricultural laborers who receive a salary from the landowner, taking on entrepreneurial risk. The Japanese farmer who rented land was a mixture of both; He was a farmer and at the same time giving most of his produce to the landlord. He resembles an English peasant as the farmer in Japan assumes the entire risk of the agricultural enterprise; but as his income is given away mostly to the landlord, the farmer-tenant is reminiscent of Japanese agricultural day laborers. The wages of agricultural day laborers was not expressed in the monetary form, but in the form of remuneration of any kind and depended on the size of the harvest and the price fluctuations of agricultural products. “The Soil” clearly proves this when Nagatsuka Takashi explains “Their crops were theirs only for as long they stood rooted in the soil.” (Nagatsuka and Waswo, p.47) In a good year the share of the tenant-farmer increased slightly, but as the demand for agricultural products remained relatively unchanged, in abundant harvest years the food prices fell dramatically, especially during the harvest period.
Thus, it has happened that the cash income of the tenant was reduced, despite the good harvest. On the other hand, the prices of manufactured goods, which the tenants are forced to buy, do not depend on the crop and on other factors, such as the state of the external market. In lean years as grain prices rose, the farmer-tenant, treating a small piece of land, could hardly put anything up for sale (Norman and Woods, p.99). Moreover, in these years, he was often forced to buy the grain grown and previously sold. Thus, the Japanese farmer-tenant is the personification of duality: he contains features of an entrepreneur-tenant (which assumes business risk) and the agricultural proletariat (as the landlord due to high rents takes away most of the income of the enterprise). One feature is so closely intertwined with the other, that it would be wrong to consider the Japanese tenant only as an entrepreneur or just as a regular worker (Norman and Woods, p.99).
The question of the chronic overcrowding and establishment of the labor market
The process of expropriation of the Japanese peasantry, as well as the separation of industry from agriculture (i.e. destruction of artisan industry), was faster than the development of capitalist enterprises in agriculture or urban industry. The above-described process of expropriation of peasants was accomplished much faster than the development of capitalism in agriculture and industry. It was also supported by the fact that after a quarter-of-a-century after the reform the peasants did not become more or less significant players in the agriculture market, but became farmer-tenants or owners/co-owners of extremely small plots of land. These farmers had to lead their half-starved existence also by mean of additional domestic industry such as spinning, weaving and sericulture (Norman and Woods, p.102).
This huge army of small peasant proprietors, lessees and tenants worked on the smallest plots of land, the numbers of which were continuously increasing due to fragmentation. Thus this policy historically has been a source of chronic overcrowding. Crushed, tiny plots of land could not provide the peasant income needed to maintain his family. Therefore, women in the family were forced to engage in some kind of domestic industry, and men – to look for additional work as coolies on the roads, railway construction and so on. The part of the permanent surplus population, which was not able to stay in the family, was forced to seek their livelihoods in urban areas. Those who could not get hired at the factory became rickshaws, porters, coolies – in short, the lowest cast of unskilled workers. To the city moved artisans, who were ousted from small cottage industries as a result of the introduction of new engine technologies, as well as those workers whose labor was unnecessary due to the use of female and child labor.
This permanent surplus population at best worked part-time, and their living conditions were characterized by irregular earnings, uncertainty about the future, and in the case of work – extremely long working hours and low wages. They sought to eventually withdraw from the cities back to their native villages, which led to even more overcrowding in villages and acted as a factor reducing the standard of living of the peasantry (Norman and Woods, p.105). Strong pressure on the overcrowded village in terms of agrarian relations did not allow many of the peasants to become farmers again, and so they were forced to seek a livelihood in any branch of handicraft industry, and with the decline of the latter, the intolerable living conditions of the peasants forced to send their daughters to the city to work at a textile factory in the hope of using their earnings to prevent the complete ruin of the family (Norman and Woods, p.105).
Some people were thrown out from the process of production in agriculture and did not join the ranks of the industrial workers. Thus they were transformed into a fluid labor pool. And just as water tends to occupy the lowest level, this excess fluid population was forced to take the low-paying jobs, thereby reducing the overall level of wages. In a country like Japan, where the development of the urban industry although rapid, but it was not widespread, the majority of the surplus population could not be absorbed by the available industry.
Moreover, since the foreign labor market, which is a window of opportunity that helped solve the problem of surplus population in some European countries in the late XIX century, was cut off for Japanese workers due to the prohibition of immigration, the surplus population of Japan had nothing left to do but wait for further development of industrialization or look for new opportunities to maintain its existence in the industry at home. With good reason we can say that the existence of this huge source of chronic or potential labor surplus has drawn attention of small industrialists to agriculture. As overpopulation in rural areas does not allow much of the surplus population to engage in agricultural production, the only means of subsistence for it is the industrial, urban or home production (Norman and Woods, 106).
However, the large urban industry has not reached a level of development to absorb all this labor pool, partly due to the nature of Japanese industry, and partly to a large extent due to the presence of chronic excess reserve population, which had been formed in the previous period. As a result, many Japanese entrepreneurs were able to do without the expensive factory equipment, distributing piecework between the families of those who live in this limbo – between agriculture, which can no longer provide them with work, and between urban industries, the doors of which had not yet opened for them (Norman and Woods, p.106). Using this Japanese entrepreneurs were able to maneuver with payroll waiting for the sporadic increase or decrease in the market demand for manufactured goods, without the risk of damage to factory equipment or obsolescence of goods in periods of calm. This once again confirms the above position of the matching interests of industrialists and large landowners.
The establishment of the labor market in Japan is characterized by the appearance of a chronic source of excess labor, formed mainly due to the expropriated peasants whose absorption by the industry was delayed because of the slow rate of development of large-scale industrial production. It is undeniable that some absorption of excess labor occurred (Norman and Woods, p.107). However, a huge amount of surplus population settled in villages and towns and found no use to their own labor, which is an important factor that reduced the standard of living and wages of Japanese workers.
Before finishing up on this subject, it should be noted that in Japan there was a constant movement of the agricultural surplus population into the industry, and slow but steady growth of the industrial population. During the period from 1894, when the process of expropriation of the peasantry was almost over and the industrial revolution culminated in its development up to the eve of World War II (1913) the total number of economically active population, living on personal earnings increased from 24 428 109 to 30 026 403 (increase by 23%), while during the same period, the number of industrial workers increased from 381 390 to 916 252 (or 140%) people (Norman and Woods, p.108).
Although during the period from 1887 to 1913, the rural population has increased absolutely, relatively it has decreased. If in 1887 the number of families engaged in agriculture throughout Japan was 71%, in 1913 this number dropped to 58%. Thus the ratio of the population engaged in agriculture compared to industry decreased from 11.1:1 to 6.4:1.
The people in rural Japan during the “Meiji” era were clinging onto the soil as it provided them with at least some sort of means to exist in this world.
In their hardships they valued soil as it gave same some means to survive. As food was scarce, and this did not depend on how fruitful the year was, the farmers did everything they could to earn their living and feed their families. Their labor year was divided into two parts – one where they almost broke their backs in the fields, and another when farmers had to seek other means to earn money or food. The situation was worsened by the fact that the rent for using the land could not be paid by all farmers which lead to payments made not in the monetary form, but by land itself. For farmers this was like a slow death. Each year they could not pay the rent, and each year they gave away a plot of land as payment, having less means to survive and less means to grow their own
food.
Many could not stand this, so they together with others who had already lost all of their lands moved to rural areas. However there they also could not survive due to lack of skill, high cost of life, extremely long working hours and a surplus of the population. Seeing this, many returned to the urban areas, creating a phenomenon of overpopulation. But despite the visible negative effect, many people still returned to their land and soil, where they could at least try to grow their own food. Seeing this one might ask oneself: how did they manage to survive? Maybe it is because of their fortitude which allowed them to live through the dark period of their history and become what they are now.
Most of the most radical changes happened to Japan during the Meiji era. Then rural people were tightly tied with soil, the ground they stood on, the fields they walked through, even after death. Their lives depended on soil as they grew crop on the soil to survive, got resources from soil for trade, and were buried into the soil. Even though farmers could leave their lands and work in town and find a chance of becoming an up-class citizen, they in reality were as …show more content…
ordinary as the soil, at the bottom of the world, but having that trait of fortitude that enabled them to survive and transform Japan into what it is today.
“Meiji” period agrarian reform
The Agrarian reform of the "Meiji period" made by the aristocratic government was bourgeois in character. Former feudal lords received large cash payment compensation for their lands. In the village private ownership of land was established. However, the lack of land and overpopulation in the rural zone led to the spread of natural forms of rent and oppressive relations of tenants with landlords. However in his fiction novel “The Soil” Takashi Nagatsuka portrays another type of relations between the master and the tenant. This is especially visible throughout the whole book in the relations between Kanji and the master’s wife. Whenever Kanji stole something from them, if the situation got out of control, i.e. the police became involved, the master’s wife tended to come in and save the single father who got so accustomed to stealing. (Nagatsuka and Waswo, p.54-56, p.73-76)
The three-percent tax on land each year absorbed up to 50% of the gross income of the peasantry (Norman and Woods, p.91). Replacement of the natural form with the monetary tax system was extremely disadvantageous for the peasants, who had to immediately sell their crops at a low price in order to pay tax.
All this led to extreme volatility of small peasant farming in Japan, eased the usurious enslavement of the peasantry and the deprivation of lands. The role of moneylenders was often performed by Japanese landlords who increased their possessions, taking away the land of peasants as payment for debt. As the city could not produce enough demand for labor, the agrarian overpopulation led to inefficient fragmentation of land and very high rent (7 times as high as in England and 3.5 times as high as in Germany) (Norman and Woods, p.96).
However, changes in the socio-economic structure of the Japanese countryside led to a fairly rapid increase in agricultural production. If, within one hundred and fifty years the crop area did not exceed 3 million cho, after 5 years after the beginning of the agrarian reform they amounted to 3.8 million cho, and after 15 years – 4.2 million cho. Agriculture became more of a commodity (Norman and Woods, p.97). This was reflected in faster growth of major export crops: tea and silk. From 1868 to 1882, their exports increased almost two-fold.
The development of agriculture in Japan in the first 15 years of "Meiji" was stimulated by the fact that the government had covered spending by issuing paper money. This accounts for the high level of prices for agricultural products. But fixed according to the 80s the rate for hard currency had led to a reduction by more than twice in the price of rice and silk, and thus accelerated the ruin of the peasantry. In 1883 33 thousand farmers were driven from the land, in 1884 – 70 thousand, in 1885 – 108 thousand (Norman and Woods, p.97).
As a result, by 1905 only 30% of farms retained their ownership of the land retained, and 70% have become tenants renting land. Land rent under agrarian overpopulation was of higher profitability for the capitalist landowners. Therefore many entrepreneurs have sought to invest the excess profit in the ground to lease it.
Small peasant farms in Japan – causes and consequences of this phenomenon’s occurrence
The expropriation of the peasantry in Japan, unlike England, did not lead to the creation or increase in the average allotment of arable land. On the contrary (despite a slight increase in the average size of the allotment of arable land) was accompanied by a continuous distribution of fragmented rented plots of land cultivated by farmer-tenant families (Nagatsuka and Waswo, p.9). Takashi Nagatsuka in his fiction novel “The Soil” presents us his main character Kanji who distributed his crops on fragmented territories: “Lacking a plot of appropriate land nearby, he had set a row of cucumbers along the hedge… the squash he had planted next to the privy… only the eggplants had gone into his patch of dry land on the other side of the village…” (Nagatsuka and Waswo, p.9)
The extreme fragmentation of land is characteristic of Japanese agriculture, and had been preserved even after the establishment of private land ownership and the rapid expansion of the land lease. Land fragmentation was the result of an unusually high rent, which in some places (namely where rice fields were located) reached over a half of the total harvest. This issue is so important for the understanding of agrarian relations in Japan that we should subject it to further analysis. As the person who owned capital and land, specifically the merchants, moneylenders or rich peasants, could receive such a high return on invested capital in the ground in the form of rent, they had no incentive to ensure the transformation into agricultural entrepreneurs that would have owned farms with the aim of production of agricultural products for the market using hired labor.
In the then existing agrarian relations in Japan, the landowner, confident in getting such a high return on invested capital, would be very unwise to venture to organize capitalist production for profit, which could have been much lower than that which brought him rent. In other words, the excessively high rents destroyed the incentive for obtaining business profits. As a result, the land remained in the same position as it was in the period of feudalism – divided into tiny plots cultivated by peasants, the growing number of which resulted in an increase in demand for land and competition in the lease, thereby providing for the high level of rents. And this in turn led to the fragmentation of the leased land. To this must be added the strong attachment of the peasant to the land, which was consecrated by the work of their many ancestors.
In the struggle for survival on the land as the owner or co-owner, the peasants from time to time sold a few tsubo of land in order to pay off their debt on the land tax, pay the debts to the pawnbroker, to survive a tough year and cope with the difficulties caused by crop failure, possessive case of draft animals or natural disasters. Farmers parted with each piece of their land against their will. As a result, small owners further reduces the scope of their work on the remaining plot of land. “Once the farmers had paid their rents they owned, they were lucky to have enough left over to sustain them through the winter.” (Nagatsuka and Waswo, p.47) This illustrates the impact high rents had and what an obstacle it was to the development of purely capitalist relations in agriculture, whereas the extreme overcrowding of villages led to the preservation, and in some cases even to a decrease in the already small land sites which remained from the feudal period.
"The farmer himself understands how inconvenient and unprofitable such a system of agriculture is, but often a significant improvement in the status quo for a short period of time was not possible due to the established relations of ownership or lease," (Norman and Woods, p.98). And further: "In the period of the decline of feudalism there were small landowners; the scale of agricultural production remained as small as it was before; there still was a surplus of labor in the family; no significant changes happened in the village. The Japanese agriculture still retained its old form," (Norman and Woods, p.98). Thus, the peasant, wishing to ensure the subsistence level of the family, enhanced the intensification of their economy using each piece of land at their disposal to its full potential.
Fragmentation of land and the specific conditions prevailing in the Meiji agrarian reform when farmers paid exceptionally high rents and heavy land tax, the absence of development incentives by landowners, left a deep mark on agrarian relations in Japan. This question can be best examined by studying the social position of the Japanese peasant.
Social status of Japanese farmer-tenant
In Japan the peasants were not capitalist entrepreneur, as in other countries. But they cannot be considered as agricultural laborers who receive a salary from the landowner, taking on entrepreneurial risk. The Japanese farmer who rented land was a mixture of both; He was a farmer and at the same time giving most of his produce to the landlord. He resembles an English peasant as the farmer in Japan assumes the entire risk of the agricultural enterprise; but as his income is given away mostly to the landlord, the farmer-tenant is reminiscent of Japanese agricultural day laborers. The wages of agricultural day laborers was not expressed in the monetary form, but in the form of remuneration of any kind and depended on the size of the harvest and the price fluctuations of agricultural products. “The Soil” clearly proves this when Nagatsuka Takashi explains “Their crops were theirs only for as long they stood rooted in the soil.” (Nagatsuka and Waswo, p.47) In a good year the share of the tenant-farmer increased slightly, but as the demand for agricultural products remained relatively unchanged, in abundant harvest years the food prices fell dramatically, especially during the harvest period.
Thus, it has happened that the cash income of the tenant was reduced, despite the good harvest. On the other hand, the prices of manufactured goods, which the tenants are forced to buy, do not depend on the crop and on other factors, such as the state of the external market. In lean years as grain prices rose, the farmer-tenant, treating a small piece of land, could hardly put anything up for sale (Norman and Woods, p.99). Moreover, in these years, he was often forced to buy the grain grown and previously sold. Thus, the Japanese farmer-tenant is the personification of duality: he contains features of an entrepreneur-tenant (which assumes business risk) and the agricultural proletariat (as the landlord due to high rents takes away most of the income of the enterprise). One feature is so closely intertwined with the other, that it would be wrong to consider the Japanese tenant only as an entrepreneur or just as a regular worker (Norman and Woods, p.99).
The question of the chronic overcrowding and establishment of the labor market
The process of expropriation of the Japanese peasantry, as well as the separation of industry from agriculture (i.e. destruction of artisan industry), was faster than the development of capitalist enterprises in agriculture or urban industry. The above-described process of expropriation of peasants was accomplished much faster than the development of capitalism in agriculture and industry. It was also supported by the fact that after a quarter-of-a-century after the reform the peasants did not become more or less significant players in the agriculture market, but became farmer-tenants or owners/co-owners of extremely small plots of land. These farmers had to lead their half-starved existence also by mean of additional domestic industry such as spinning, weaving and sericulture (Norman and Woods, p.102).
This huge army of small peasant proprietors, lessees and tenants worked on the smallest plots of land, the numbers of which were continuously increasing due to fragmentation. Thus this policy historically has been a source of chronic overcrowding. Crushed, tiny plots of land could not provide the peasant income needed to maintain his family. Therefore, women in the family were forced to engage in some kind of domestic industry, and men – to look for additional work as coolies on the roads, railway construction and so on. The part of the permanent surplus population, which was not able to stay in the family, was forced to seek their livelihoods in urban areas. Those who could not get hired at the factory became rickshaws, porters, coolies – in short, the lowest cast of unskilled workers. To the city moved artisans, who were ousted from small cottage industries as a result of the introduction of new engine technologies, as well as those workers whose labor was unnecessary due to the use of female and child labor.
This permanent surplus population at best worked part-time, and their living conditions were characterized by irregular earnings, uncertainty about the future, and in the case of work – extremely long working hours and low wages. They sought to eventually withdraw from the cities back to their native villages, which led to even more overcrowding in villages and acted as a factor reducing the standard of living of the peasantry (Norman and Woods, p.105). Strong pressure on the overcrowded village in terms of agrarian relations did not allow many of the peasants to become farmers again, and so they were forced to seek a livelihood in any branch of handicraft industry, and with the decline of the latter, the intolerable living conditions of the peasants forced to send their daughters to the city to work at a textile factory in the hope of using their earnings to prevent the complete ruin of the family (Norman and Woods, p.105).
Some people were thrown out from the process of production in agriculture and did not join the ranks of the industrial workers. Thus they were transformed into a fluid labor pool. And just as water tends to occupy the lowest level, this excess fluid population was forced to take the low-paying jobs, thereby reducing the overall level of wages. In a country like Japan, where the development of the urban industry although rapid, but it was not widespread, the majority of the surplus population could not be absorbed by the available industry.
Moreover, since the foreign labor market, which is a window of opportunity that helped solve the problem of surplus population in some European countries in the late XIX century, was cut off for Japanese workers due to the prohibition of immigration, the surplus population of Japan had nothing left to do but wait for further development of industrialization or look for new opportunities to maintain its existence in the industry at home. With good reason we can say that the existence of this huge source of chronic or potential labor surplus has drawn attention of small industrialists to agriculture. As overpopulation in rural areas does not allow much of the surplus population to engage in agricultural production, the only means of subsistence for it is the industrial, urban or home production (Norman and Woods, 106).
However, the large urban industry has not reached a level of development to absorb all this labor pool, partly due to the nature of Japanese industry, and partly to a large extent due to the presence of chronic excess reserve population, which had been formed in the previous period. As a result, many Japanese entrepreneurs were able to do without the expensive factory equipment, distributing piecework between the families of those who live in this limbo – between agriculture, which can no longer provide them with work, and between urban industries, the doors of which had not yet opened for them (Norman and Woods, p.106). Using this Japanese entrepreneurs were able to maneuver with payroll waiting for the sporadic increase or decrease in the market demand for manufactured goods, without the risk of damage to factory equipment or obsolescence of goods in periods of calm. This once again confirms the above position of the matching interests of industrialists and large landowners.
The establishment of the labor market in Japan is characterized by the appearance of a chronic source of excess labor, formed mainly due to the expropriated peasants whose absorption by the industry was delayed because of the slow rate of development of large-scale industrial production. It is undeniable that some absorption of excess labor occurred (Norman and Woods, p.107). However, a huge amount of surplus population settled in villages and towns and found no use to their own labor, which is an important factor that reduced the standard of living and wages of Japanese workers.
Before finishing up on this subject, it should be noted that in Japan there was a constant movement of the agricultural surplus population into the industry, and slow but steady growth of the industrial population. During the period from 1894, when the process of expropriation of the peasantry was almost over and the industrial revolution culminated in its development up to the eve of World War II (1913) the total number of economically active population, living on personal earnings increased from 24 428 109 to 30 026 403 (increase by 23%), while during the same period, the number of industrial workers increased from 381 390 to 916 252 (or 140%) people (Norman and Woods, p.108).
Although during the period from 1887 to 1913, the rural population has increased absolutely, relatively it has decreased. If in 1887 the number of families engaged in agriculture throughout Japan was 71%, in 1913 this number dropped to 58%. Thus the ratio of the population engaged in agriculture compared to industry decreased from 11.1:1 to 6.4:1.
The people in rural Japan during the “Meiji” era were clinging onto the soil as it provided them with at least some sort of means to exist in this world.
In their hardships they valued soil as it gave same some means to survive. As food was scarce, and this did not depend on how fruitful the year was, the farmers did everything they could to earn their living and feed their families. Their labor year was divided into two parts – one where they almost broke their backs in the fields, and another when farmers had to seek other means to earn money or food. The situation was worsened by the fact that the rent for using the land could not be paid by all farmers which lead to payments made not in the monetary form, but by land itself. For farmers this was like a slow death. Each year they could not pay the rent, and each year they gave away a plot of land as payment, having less means to survive and less means to grow their own
food.
Many could not stand this, so they together with others who had already lost all of their lands moved to rural areas. However there they also could not survive due to lack of skill, high cost of life, extremely long working hours and a surplus of the population. Seeing this, many returned to the urban areas, creating a phenomenon of overpopulation. But despite the visible negative effect, many people still returned to their land and soil, where they could at least try to grow their own food. Seeing this one might ask oneself: how did they manage to survive? Maybe it is because of their fortitude which allowed them to live through the dark period of their history and become what they are now.