¹ Smith, Thomas C., Political Change and Industrial Development in Japan: Government Enterprise, 1868–1880 (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1955), pp. 13–22Google Scholar.

² I believe this is not to be explained primarily by merchant influence on the Restoration; for evidence of the weakness of such influence, Ibid., pp. 15–17.

³ One tan equals 0.245 acres.

⁴ Smith, Thomas C., “The Japanese Village in the 17th Century,” The Journal of Economic History, XII, no. 1 (Winter 1952), 5Google Scholar. The figures shown should be taken as approximate only.

⁵ Kazuhiko, Takao, “Sesshu Hirano-gō ni okeru watasaku no hatten” (The Development of Cotton Growing in Hirano Village, Sesshu), Shirin (History), XXXIV, no. 1 (February 1951), 4Google Scholar.

⁶ The reader may object to calling the gōnō a “peasant” since gōnō were very different from most peasants. The term is used here nevertheless because gōnō had more in common with the peasantry than any other class: they lived in villages, farmed land, and took part in the social and religious life of the whole community; and they were considered peasants by their contemporaries.

⁷ Hyakushō bukuro (A Farmer's Handbook, 1731), in Seiichi, Takumoto (ed.), Nihon keizai sōsho (Bibliotheca Japonica Oeconomiae Politicae), (Tokyo: Kankōkai, 1914), V, pp. 192–93Google Scholar. (This collection is hereafter cited as NKS). Kannō saku (A Policy for Encouraging Agriculture, ca. 1804), Ibid., XX, pp. 585–87.

⁸ Seiji kemmon roku (Contemporary Observations and Hearsay, 1816), Kinsei shakai keizai sōsho (Collected Works on Tokugawa Economy and Society), (Tokyo: Kaizōsha, 1927), I, 48–49Google Scholar. The author's real name is not known.

⁹ Tanaka Kyūgū, author of Minkan seiyō (Discourses on Civic Affairs), a work dating from the first half of the 18th century, asserted that in times of crisis, such as flood, drought, or sickness, the peasants “… have no choice but to mortgage their fields and forest land to the village headman”—as though that official's title were synonymous with “money-lender.” Shuichiro, Nakamura and Mitsuteru, Asada, Nihon shihon shugi shakai keisei shi (The Development of Capitalism in Japan), (Tokyo: Iwasaki, 1949), pp. 85–86Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Takao, Shimazaki, “Musashi no kuni Kodama gun Bōjidō mura” (Bōjidō Village, Kodama County, Musashi Province), Mita gakkai zasshi (The Mita Journal), XLIV, no. 2 (February 1953), 41–48Google Scholar; Takahiko, Fujimoto, “Bakumatsu Buzen ni okeru kinsei jinushi no seikaku” (The Character of Buzen Landlords in the Late Tokugawa Period), Keizai gaku kenkyū (Studies in Economics), XIX, no. 2, (September 1953), 140–51Google Scholar.

¹¹ Gorō, Fujita, Nihon kinsei sangyō no seisei (The Rise of Modern Industry in Japan), (Tokyo: Nihon hyōronsha, 1948), pp. 241ff.Google Scholar; Masamoto, Kitajima, “Echigo sankan chitai ni okeru junsui hōkensei no kōzō” (The Structure of Pure Feudalism in the Mountainous Area of Echigo), Shigaku zasshi (Journal of History), XLIX, no. 61 (June 1950), 37Google Scholar; Kihē, Mori, Nago seido to nōchi kaikaku (The Nago System and the Land Reform), (Tokyo: Nōsei chōsakai, 1951). PP. 1–8Google Scholar.

¹² Fukucho Shigetaka, “Bakumatsu-ki ni okeru myōji taitō gomensha no seikaku” (On the Nature of Persons with the Right to Surnames and Swords in the Late Tokugawa Period), Nihon rekishi (Japanese History), no. 38 (July 1951), 22–24. Bunden sōsho (Collection of Regulations on Local Administration, ca. 1807), NKS, X, p. 763.

¹³ Toshio, Furushima, “Bakumatsu-ki ni okeru tochi shūchū no seikaku” (Concentration of Land in the Late Tokugawa Period) Shakai keizai shigaku (Journal of Social and Economic History), XIX, no. 6 (April 1954), 73–76Google Scholar and 79–81. (Hereafter cited as SKS.)

¹⁴ Takemoto Ryūhei, writing about 1804, thought there were one or two gōnō families per ten villages. Kannō saku, p. 586.

¹⁵ Ibid., pp. 585–86.

¹⁶ In Minkan seiyō, as quoted by Takao, Tsuchiya, Hōken shakai no kōzō bunseki (An Analysis of the Structure of Feudal Society), (Tokyo: Keisō shobō, 1950), p. 229Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Furushima, Toshio, Nihon hōken nōgyō shi (History of Agriculture under Feudalism in Japan), (Tokyo: Shikai shobō, 1941), p. 304Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Takemoto Ryūhei wrote: “In recent years, small shops and small merchants have greatly increased in rural areas, which is the reason for the luxury there and the impoverishment of the towns.” Kannō saku, p. 599.

¹⁹ Eiichi, Horie, “Kinsei kinuorigyō no ichiba kōzō” (The Structure of the Silk Market in the Tokugawa Period), Keizai ronsō (Journal of Economics), LV, no. 3 (September 1942), 76Google Scholar.

²⁰ Nakamura and Asada, Shihon shugi, p. 130.

²¹ Takao, “Hirano-gō,” pp. 1–21.

²² For a brilliant analysis of trade and production in this area, see Kichinosuke, Shōji, Meiji ishin no keizai kōzō (The Economic Structure of the Meiji Restoration), (Tokyo: Ochanomizu, 1954), especially pp. 146Google Scholar ff.

²³ Kitajima Masamoto, “Kōshin-chi ni okeru nōmin-teki shukōgyō no seikaku” (Peasant Handicraft Industry in Backward Areas), Nihon shi kenkyū (Studies in Japanese History), no. 12 (June 1950), pp. 16–17.

²⁴ See Ōkura Nagatsune's account of 1834; quoted in Seizaburō, Shinobu, Kindai nihon sangyō shi josetsu (An Introduction to the History of Modern Industry in Japan), (Tokyo: Nihon hyōronsha, 1942), p. 51Google Scholar.

²⁵ Mitsuhaya, Kajinishi, “Kindai Echizen seishi-gyō to ryūtsü” (The Paper Industry and Paper Trade in Echizen in Modern Times), SKS, XIX, no. 1 (August 1953), 16Google Scholar.

²⁶ Shōji, Meiji ishin, 193–94.

²⁷ Eiichi, Horie, Hōken shakai ni okeru shihon no sonzai keitai (Modes of Capital in Feudal Society), (Tokyo: Nihon hyōronsha, 1949), 106–07Google Scholar.

²⁸ Nakamura and Asada, Shihon shugi, p. 140.

²⁹ Shinobu, Sangyō, pp. 11–15.

³⁰ Toshiyuki, Toya, Kinsei nōgyō keiei shiron (Essays on Farm Management during the Tokugawa Period), (Tokyo: Nihon hyōronsha, 1949), p. 33Google Scholar.

³¹ Shōji, Meiji ishin, pp. 169–70, 174.

³² Tenants sometimes paid their rent in part by working for their landlords in sake-making—an illustration of the way agricultural and industrial relations often overlapped, in the village. Tsuyoshi, Matsuki, “Hirosaki han ni okeru shuzōgyō shuzō shihon oyobi keiei keitai ni tsuite” (On the Brewing Industry in Hirosaki, Its Capital and Management), SKS, VII, no. 3 (June 1937). 103–4Google Scholar.

³³ Saburō, Yamamoto, “Tokugawa jidai no shuzō rōdōsha” (Labor in Sake-making during the Tokugawa Period), SKS, V, no. 12 (March 1936), 58–59Google Scholar.

³⁴ For a general treatment, Yasuzō, Horie, Waga kuni kinsei no sembai seido (Commercial Monopolies in the Tokugawa Period), (Tokyo: Kaizosha, 1933), p. 281Google Scholar; for additional examples: Toshio, Furushima, Edo jidai no shōhin ryūtsū to kōtsū (Transport and the Movement of Commodities in the Edo Period), (Tokyo: Ochanomizu, 1951), pp. 25–31Google Scholar; Tadakuma, Iwai, “Komatsu kinu no hatten” (The Development of Komatsu Silk), Shirin (History), XXXIV, no. 1 (February 1951), 50Google Scholar; Hiromu, Otsuki, “Awa han ni okeru haran sembai seido no seiritsu katei” (The Establishment of the Monopoly System for Indigo in the Awa Han), Keizai ronsō (Journal of Economics), LXXIV, no. 5 (November 1954), 70–76Google Scholar.

³⁵ Tsuda Hideo, “Hōken shakai hōkai-ki ni okeru nōmin tōsō no ichi ruikei” (One Type of Peasant Resistance under Feudalism in the Period of Its Collapse), Rekishi gaku kenkyū (Studies in History), no. 168 (February 1954), 3–4.

³⁶ Shōji, Meiji ishin, pp. 211–16; Osamu, Wakita, “Sekka watasaku chitai ni okeru nōmin dōkō” (Peasant Movements in the Cotton Area of Settsu and Kawachi Provinces), Keizai ronsō, LXXIV, no. 5 (November 1954), 47–51Google Scholar. Ryōichi, Okamoto, “Daitoshi no uchikowashi to sono shutai seiryoku” (City Riots and Their Chief Elements), Nihon shi kcnkyū, no. 12 (June 1950) 44–47Google Scholar; Shibumizu Takasuke, “Niigata sōdō oboegaki” (A Note on the Niigata Rising), Rekjshi hyōron (History Review), no. 31 (September 1951), 53–60.

³⁷ Of course gōnō did not cultivate most of their land themselves; as noted above, they typically gave most or all of it over to tenants. But this merely deepens the puzzle since on tenant land they had to divide product with the cultivator; moreover, tenant cultivation eliminated the possibility of economies from large-scale farming.

³⁸ While few scholars have analyzed this question closely, one gets a distinct impression of consensus from the all but universal use of such phrases as “impoverishment of the peasantry”; and this impression is strengthened by the most careful study of the subject to date, Toya, Nōgyō keiei, pp. 41–73. In this important work, Toya tried to formulate a typology of Japanese agriculture, setting up two basic types, “northeastern” and “southwestern,” which were distinguished by different crops, fertilizers, degrees of commercialization, and other criteria. Each type he illustrated for the Tokugawa period by a number of farm budgets. Almost without exception, those budgets showing a net profit on a holding after taxes, food, and other costs, he took to represent a “special southwestern type” of agriculture—leaving the distinct impression that holdings operating in the red were the norm for both of the two basic types. This is also the impression contemporary writers give us. For example, Minkan seiyō, pp. 275–76, 291–92.

³⁹ Tsuchiya, Hōken shakai, pp. 234–35.

⁴⁰ This paragraph is based largely on Toshio, Furushima, Nihon nōgyō gijutsu shi (History of Agricultural Technology in Japan), (Tokyo: Jichōsha, 1950), 2 volsGoogle Scholar.

⁴¹ Seiichi, Tobata (ed.), Nihon nōgyō hattatsu shi (History of the Development of Japanese Agriculture), (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1953-), I, pp. 44–46Google Scholar.

⁴² Although not the first book of its kind, the great work of Miyazaki Yasusada, Nōgyō zenshū, published in 1697, was notable for its practical reformist spirit and pronounced empirical outlook; hence it may be considered the first “scientific” treatise on agriculture. It was followed during the next century by a spate of technical books on farming and farm implements, many of them more specialized and marking a distinct advance in knowledge; but few general works were superior or more practically arranged, and none had a more lasting influence.

⁴³ Yō, Gotō, “Jūku seiki sanyō seiji noson ni okeru fūnō keiei no seikaku” (The Farming of Wealthy Peasants in the Sanyō Area in the 19th Century), Shigaku zasshi, LXIII, no. 7 (July 1954). 52–54Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Toya, Nōgyō keiei, pp. 340–44.

⁴⁵ See the memorial of a Sendai samurai in 1726, quoted by Tsuchiya, Hōken shakai, p. 234.

⁴⁶ Another factor may have been the Confucian conviction that poverty and even depravity were evils produced by malgovernment, and hence not ultimately the fault of the persons suffering from them.

⁴⁷ The land tax was commonly paid in money; but so far as I know, it was always assessed in kind and then converted at market prices into money for convenience in payment: hence the peasant could neither benefit nor lose from changes in the value of money so far as the land tax was concerned.

⁴⁸ There are many handbooks for officials that give detailed descriptions of the tax system; perhaps the best is “Jikata hanrei roku” (A Handbook on Local Administration, 1794), NKS, XXXI, pp. 133–86; I am indebted to Professor Horie Yasuzd for calling my attention to this work.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ The fixing of the tax for more than one year was practical only where commercial fertilizers, new plant varieties, and other advances in agriculture had given yields some degree of stability, eliminating at least the wildest annual fluctuations.

⁵⁰ “Taxes being light on rich high-yielding land and heavy on poor, good land comes into the possession of the wealthy ….” Takano Seiryu, a Mito scholar, writing in 1828; quoted by Tsuchiya, Hōken shakai, p. 235. Takemoto Ryūhei makes the same point repeatedly in Kannōsaku; see pp. 586, 592 particularly. Also see the quotations in this article.

⁵¹ Among the advantages of jōmen of which the government was conscious was its stimulation of productivity by taxing the peasant during a specified period at a lower rate of taxation if he achieved an increase in yields. A Tokugawa directive to district officials in 1768 explained the advantages of jōmen: “Anticipating a profit peasants make every effort in cultivating under jōmen, which moreover eliminates delay of the harvest (occasioned by inspecting the crop) so that the quality of rice is good, and also eliminates the expense of kemmi ….” Kikutaro, Kan, “Matsuyama han ni okeru jōmen-sei no kenkyu” (A Study of the Jōmen System in the Matsuyama han), SKS, XI, no. 8 (November 1941), 54Google Scholar.

⁵² Oishi Kyūkei pointed out that one holding was profitable and another was not chiefly owing to differences in labor costs; therefore, in relation to yields after costs, holdings were taxed at differential rates; but observers seem to have been talking about differentials in relation to gross yields; this is especially clear in the quotation given in the text. Jikata hanrei roku, pp. 367–68.

⁵³ Officials were quite aware of the dangers of overtaxation and presumably were at pains to avoid it. Ibid., pp. 134–37.

⁵⁴ Tamenari, Miwa, “Kyū Hagi han ni zeisei” (Taxation in the Hagi han), SKS, VIII, no. 3 (March 1939), 22Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ Kan, ”Jōmen-sei,” p. 97.

⁵⁶ This must refer to “hidden fields”: fields under cultivation but not registered for taxation because “hidden” at the time of a land survey, or brought under cultivation between surveys but not reported. Jikata hanrei roku. pp. 106–7.

⁵⁷ Kan, “Jomen-sei,” p. 97.

⁵⁸ Yagi Hōdai, “Bakumatsu-ki ni okeru tōhoku chihō nōson no shakai keizai kōzō” (The Social and Economic Structure of the Tōhoku Village in the Late Tokugawa Period), Rekishi gaku Kenkyū no. 184 (June 1955), 15–16.

⁵⁹ The manuscript of this treatise, which comes from a village in Kawachi Province and is thought to date from 1695, is published in Nomura Yutaka (ed.). Kawachi Ishikawa mura gakujutsu chōsa hōkoku: kinsei sonraku shiryō (A Field Report on Ishikawa Village, Kawachi Province: Historical Materials on the Village from the Tokugawa Period), Osaka: Ueda seibundō, 1952), pp. 365–80; especially pp. 370, 375.

⁶⁰ Peasant rebellions at the end of the Tokugawa period were like many another great social struggle: their class character was ambiguous. They were directed, perhaps not consciously but certainly in implication, against the warrior class and the institutional arrangements supporting its privileged and exploitive position. But once a rebellion broke out, violence was sometimes directed also against the upper stratum of peasants, who in the eyes of less fortunate peasants often seemed agents of the ruling class or perhaps just hateful in their own right. Sometimes, too, there were struggles within villages that were not set off by the eruption of violence against the military class. Attempts on the part of groups of peasants to unseat or “recall,” so to speak, a headman were not uncommon in the decades immediately before the Restoration. See for example, Kentaro, Hattori, “Musashi no kuni, Saitama gun, Mugikura mura” (Mugikura Village, Saitama County, Musashi Province), Mita gakkai zasshi, XLIV, no. 2 (February 1953), 17–21Google Scholar.