The peasants had an even harder time than the _samurai_. Many local
peasant revolts took place in the years up to 1877. Imperial forces
suppressed them, and so prevented the peasants from indulging in mass
confiscations of lands.
Yet great changes were taking place. For the peasants were no longer
feudal serfs. They became landholders, and they could serve in the
army. But the individual peasant secured only a very small plot of
land. As a private owner, his situation was most precarious. He had
to face the risks of drought or flood, pay taxes in money instead of
rice, and cope with price changes in the market. His land soon had to
be mortgaged, and could then be taken away by foreclosure. Indeed,
many peasants quickly lost their lands in the early years of the new
order. By 1892 nearly 40 per cent of the total cultivated area was
worked by tenants. This proportion has persisted, while the number of
part-tenants has increased.
Japanese agriculture, moreover, remained backward in technique and
social organization. The landlords became parasites. Instead of working
the land as a capitalist enterprise for profit, they were intent only
on drawing high rents--often as much as 60 per cent. This system had
far-reaching effects on Japan.
As the number of tenants grew, and the land became divided into smaller
and smaller plots, the farm areas in Japan became overpopulated. Only
a part of the unneeded farm workers could find a place in industry.
Competing for jobs, they kept wages low. Low wages, of course, were a
boon to industrial development. But what industry gained in one way
it lost in another. For the farmers and the workers were too poor to
buy much. The country’s purchasing power grew only very slowly. Thus
the home market for factory products was limited, and industry did not
develop as fast as it might otherwise have done. Very early Japan’s
new factory industries had to turn to the foreign market. As the
limitations on Japan’s home market have persisted down to the present
time, the pressure for foreign trade expansion has grown steadily more
urgent. Here is one underlying cause for Japan’s current policy of
military expansion.