The Japanese Land Survey and Its Characteristics during the Colonial Period in Korea

Korea had been a colony of Japan from 1910 to 1945 when Korea was liberated from Japan. After the Liberation a Land Reform was carried out, casting off a Japanese land tenure system established druing that period, and many tenant farm families were converted into owner-occupiers. The Japanese Land Survey from 1910 to 1918 was a foundation for establishing the Japanese land tenure system in Korea. The purpose of this study is to examine the procedures of the Land Survey and to evaluate it specially referring to the land tenure system established after that. There are dual points of view regarding this Land Survey: (1) Ichiro Wada and some other scholars evaluated the Land Survey as an important step toward a modern landownership in Korea, since the de jure private ownership for land was newly established by the laws accompanied with the Land Survey. They maintained that ail the land including privately held before the Land Survey belonged to the Chosun Dynasty which extended from 13th to 19th centuries in Korea. (2) The others recognized the de facto private landownership widely appeared during the later part of the Chosun Dynasty. They evaluated the Land Survey not as a procedure to establish a modern landownership but as one to have only admitted officially the private landownership already appeared. The points in this study are as follows: 1. The main object of the Land Survey was to determine landowners for all the land of the country and to establish a new land tax system. 2. The right and interest of peasant families were neglected in the Land Survey, since, for one thing, the government recognized those ‘rent collectors’ as landowners who were mostly de facto landlords but originally officials and military men in higher ranks held land of the Dynasty and collected rents from peasants for the Dynasty Treasury, and for another any lands for which owners were not clear were included in state land, irrespective of the fact that the lands were held and cultivated for long years by peasant families unless they could have proved their right of holding the lands with some documents. Much of the state land was sold at cheap prices to Japanese companies and wealthy individuals. They became larger landowners and let the land to Korean peasant families. 3. As the new landowners (Japanese and Koreans) appeared and increased in number and size of their holdings, many peasant families had to be tenant farm families. Rents were raised sharply. The levels of rents were usually 50% and sometimes 90% of the gross output per unit area. The rents paid were mostly in kind such as rice. 4. It has been recognized that the land tenure system in the colonial period was made use of to exploit Korean farm families by the contemporary Japanese landowners and companies. Japan also transferred much of rice collected as rents from those peasant families to home country. Therefore the necessity of a Land Reform seriously felt after the Liberation from Japan. This was completed with the Land Reform that took place in 1949.