Note 57 — INTRODUCTORY

The rent is of two kinds: either to be decided anew each year after the harvest, or to deliver to the proprietor 50 per cent. of the crop. It should always be remembered that a large majority of actual cultivators are tenants, the proprietors being limited to a small class of rich men, officers, and nobles. The daily wage of the laborer on the farm averages 20 sen, but it is usually paid in kind, as are debts and repayments in many cases. The standard of life of the Korean farmer is perhaps lower than that of the Japanese, but apparently not less comfortable. The national land tax is said to be mild and largely discarded, but the house tax, special tax, local tax, and the like, bring up the dues of the farmer sometimes to an unendurable extent. The tenant, after paying his rent and other charges, is obliged to sell what little rice is left to him at the earliest opportunity, so that he henceforth becomes a buyer of rice, and consequently has little to buy other articles with, and still less to save, until his spring harvest of wheat comes in. Woe betide him when both the rice and the wheat crops fail! See the Kokumin, January 13 and 14, 1904, and the Tsūshō Isan for August 3, 1903, p. 21.