Press translations [Japan]. Economic Series 0247, 1946-02-02.
Date2 February, 1946
translation numbereconomic-1082
call numberDS801 .S81
Persistent Identifier
ECONOMIC SERIES: 247
ITEM 1 Hoarded Rice Estimated At 550,000 Koku Tokyo Shimbun 1 Feb 46. Translator: T. Kitagawa
Summary:
The Communist Party has disclosed its estimate of hoarded rice as follows: Five million
koku of emergency rice, forcible
collected from farmers for an expected war in the homeland, is being hoarded by the
former military clique, bureaucrats and
capitalists. Besides this, farmers and influential landlords who, on the pretext of
an expected poor crop for the year,
estimated it so conservatively that they could hoard practically 15 per cent of the
total rice crop amounting to six million
koku. Apart from the rice hoarding mentioned, farmers secretly hoarded 8,000,000 koku
during the war, which altogether totals
19,000,000 koku.
The party's opinion is that half of the 19,000,000 koku would maintain the nation
for a couple of months. The Ministry of
Agriculture and Forestry, however, disagrees with the estimate, denouncing it as an
exaggeration. In the first piece, the
Ministry defines hoarding as that which can be definitely collected by the government
in one way or another. In this respect
it would be rather difficult to force a sale of the 6,000,000 koku of hidden rice,
which, according to the Communist Party,
has been hoarded by farmers and largo landowners through their intentional underestimation
of crops. Moreover, those who
underestimated crops are not confined to large landowners, for tenants have done the
same.
If the farmers were able to hoard 8,000,000 koku of rice during the war, the major
part of it has probably been sold on the
black market or taken way by repatriates. No one knows the present hoarding places
of the 5,000,000 koku of rice earmarked for
military use, except that the Ministry's investigation revealed that roughly 540,000
koku was missing. Only 635,000 koku of
rice out of 1,176,000 koku, which the Japanese Armed Forces reported after the war
to the Ministry as available, has been
found procurable, 80 per cent of which has been secured by the Government and is in
the process of being rationed.
The difference between the 1,176,000 koku formerly held by the Armed Forces and the
635,000 which was actually turned over to
the Food Association, that is about 540,000 koku, might be hoarded. However, even
in regards to this 540,000 koku, some
allowance has to be made for a discepancy in figures presented by the Armed Forces
and for the probable amount of stolen
rice.
The Communists' talk about 6,000,000 koku making a mountain of a molehill. Meanwhile,
rice hoarding by munition plants will
not exceed in all much more than 10,000 koku, their annual ration was 21,000 koku.
Again, the illegal hoarding of rice
resulting from the burning of books will amount to scarcely 1,000 koku. In short,
no matter how we consider, not more than
550,000 koku is the figure for hoarded rice which might be submitted to the Government.
ECONOMIC SERIES: 247 (Continued)
ITEM 2 Allotment of Nitrogenous Fertilizer to Each Prefecture - Mainichi Shimbun -1 Feb 46. Translator: R. Shibata
Full Translation:
In connection with the cultivation plan for crops, the Minister of Agriculture and
Forestry has been studying the allotment of
nitrogenous fertilizer to he distributed from January to July in 1946 to each prefecture
according to the kind of crops. It
came to a formal decision on 31 January, and immediately informed each local governor.
The quantity allotted for distribution this time is equivalent to 286,598 tons of
ammonium sulphate. As compared with 213,693
tons, which was distributed in the same period of the previous year, it shows an increase
of 72,905 tons. Altogether 50,000
tons have already been distributed, to farmers who have completed their rice quota,
and the amount expected to be distributed
in this half year will exceed 330,000 tons. So with an import of phosphate ore for
which a request is being made to Allied
Headquarters and coal conditions turning for the better, it seems that a bright future
has begun to open for fertilizers.
The quantity allotted to each prefecture is as follows:
(tons) | (tons) | ||
HOKKAIDO | 19,540 | MIE | 5,877 |
AOMORI | 6,401 | SHIGA | 4,983 |
IWATE | 5,923 | KYOTO | 3,684 |
MIYAGI | 8,118 | OSAKA | 3,097 |
AKITA | 7,992 | HYOGO | 8,091 |
YAMTGATA | 8,216 | NARA | 2,395 |
FUKUSHIMA | 9,802 | WAKAYAMA | 2,649 |
IBARAGI | 10,771 | TOTTORI | 2,796 |
TOCHIGI | 8,100 | SHIMANE | 4,273 |
GUMMA | 5,932 | OKAYAMA. | 7,222 |
SAITAMA | 8.908 | HIROSHIMA | 6,446 |
CHIBA | 9,990 | YAMAGUCHI | 5,646 |
TOKYO | 1,699 | TOKUSHIMA | 2,873 |
KANAGAWA | 3,431 | KAGAWA | 3,075 |
NIIGATA | 13,588 | EHIME | 4,375 |
TOYAMA | 5,944 | KOCHI | 2,973 |
ISHIKAWA | 4,250 | FUKUOKA | 8,235 |
FUKUI | 3,836 | SAGA | 4,273 |
YAMANASHI | 2,484 | NAGASAKI | 3,616 |
NAGANO | 8,822 | KUMAMOTO | 7,796 |
GIFU | 6,067 | OITA | 5,134 |
SHIZUOKA | 6,717 | MIYAZAKI | 4,550 |
ALCHI | 8,360 | KAGOSHIMA | 7,931 |
Total | 286,598 |
ITEM 3 View of the Financial Circles On The Current Inflation Mainichi Shimbun - 1 Feb 46. Translator: R. Aoki
Full Translation:
Note circulation which reached 55.4 billion yen at the end of December will now reach
billion yen at the end of January.
Financial experts attribute such an increase in circulation to the following causes:
- 1.Withdrawal of bank deposits because of the present inflated living costs.
- 2.Withdrawal of deposits in order to evade the profit and property taxes.
- 3.Increasing cash on hand of merchants and the general public because of the increased practice of cash sales.
- 4.Increase of over draft by banks on the security of time deposits and frozen assets as funds for factory reconversion, or for speculation in goods.
- 5.Increased demand for money due to wage and salary raises. - 2 -
- ECONOMIC SERIES: 247 (Continued) ITEM 3 (Continued)
- 6.A seasonal inflation of currency in many rural districts where the people observe New Year according to the lunar calender. In fact, deposits of member banks of the TOKYO Bankers' Association decreased by 1,331,000,000 yen in December and by 445 million yen in the first ten-day period of January, while loans increased by 3,256,000,00 yen and 339 million yen respectively for the same periods.
Because of these developments, there is at present a strong demand for restriction
on the withdrawing of bank deposits.
Others, however, feel that at this stage of inflation a mere moratorium may not be
able to stave off the current tides:
Concerning this question of conditional moratorium, a financial group opposing it
expressed the following views.
- 1.The bank restriction would enhance social unrest among the people who cannot live on their cash on hand.
- 2.The restriction may increase the circulation of the currency outstanding, thus stimulating the inflation further.
- 3.The restriction may tend to stimulate withdrawals of deposits up to the limit.
- 4.A moratorium may encourage the present tendency to barter goods, thus defeating its own purpose of stabilizing currency.
So much for the question of moratorium. The present conditions are so acute that
they do not permit any delay. Financial
circles hold the view that the present inflation is a kind of "hunger inflation,"
that is, an inflation caused by the shortage
of foods and other supplies and that in order to meet the situation the authorities
should abandon at once the effortless
policies of the past and take the following measures:
- 1.Take strong measures to facilitate rice delivery by the farmers and buy up hoarded food stuffs.
- 2.Readjust wages and commodity prices in accordance with a just distribution system.
DISTRIBUTION "X"
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