1. Bix, , CQ 51, p. 427Google Scholar.

2. See Myers, Ramon H., “Rural institutions and their influence upon agricultural development in modern China and Taiwan,” The Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2: 2 (1969), pp. 349–68Google Scholar.

3. A good description of land settlement customs in south Manchuria during the Ch'ing period can be found in Kantō totokufu rinji tochi chōsabu (Provisional Land Survey Department of the Government-General of Kwantung), Kantōshū tochi kyūkan ippan (A Draft of Old Customs Concerning Land in Kwantung Prefecture) (Dairen, 1915), pp. 214–21Google Scholar.

4. I have not exhaustively researched the records for late-nineteenth-century Feng-t'ien, but some evidence to show that large landlords rented roughly 90 per cent. of their land can be found in Wen-chih, Li, Chung-kuo chin-tai nung-yeh shih tzu-liao (Materials on the Agricultural History of Modern China) (Peking, 1957), Vol. I, p. 682Google Scholar.

5. Polarization conceivably occurred later in this process after a very high percentage of households had acquired land to farm. During periods of economic decline polarization invariably occurred between different strata of households, but this might have been only in the very short term after which the process was then reversed. What is being argued here is the transformation of a rural community comprised of a handful of large estate owners with the remainder working as labourers and/or tenants into a community with a larger share of families now having some land to farm. This is the dramatic transformation of south Manchuria between the 1880s and 1930s, and central and north Manchuria were merely duplicating this process – but after a time lag.

6. These institutions certainly made for a very complex pattern of land holding over the long run. Evidence from the 1934 survey for a village in K'o-shan county north-west of Harbin shows that 1,620 shang of land owned by two families in 1913 had been resold countless times during the next 20 years so that by 1934 this same amount of land had become divided into small parcels of different sizes owned by 54 households. The remarkable table showing the complex exchange of land on an annual basis can be found in Jigyōbu rinji sangyō chōsakyoku, Tochi kankei narabi ni kank ōhen (A Volume on Land Relationships and Customs) (Hsinkyo, 1937), pp. 157–8Google Scholar. I have never seen any comparable historical document like it in the historiography of Chinese agrarian history.

7. Bix, , CQ 51, p. 443Google Scholar.

8. South Manchuria Railway Company, Report on Progress in Manchuria, 1907–1928 (Dairen, 1929), pp. 103–4Google Scholar.

9. There is scarcely any evidence that long term capital steadily flowed from Japan to Manchuria on an annual basis to finance an import surplus from Japan or anywhere else before 1931. For information on the value and type of foreign capital according to use in Manchuria, see the neglected classic by Amano Motonosuke, “Manshū keizai no hattatsu” (”The development of the Manchurian economy”), Mantetsu Chōsa Geppō, 12:7 (07 1932), pp. 1–98Google Scholar.

10. Drake, P. J., “Natural resources versus foreign borrowing in economic development,” The Economic Journal, 82:327 (09 1972), p. 955CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This assertion is advanced as a tentative hypothesis to be confirmed or rejected after more price and exchange rate data are collected and analysed. If this assertion was proved erroneous, the task would then be to show that the profit margin between prices received by the peasantry and paid by exporters was sufficiently high and had been captured by exporters to permit a high reinvestment of profits.

11. This same proposition might be applied to all foreign enterprise in China during this period involved in the export trade. Part of the successful increase of exports of primary materials from China was due to the innovating activities and energy displayed by foreign businessmen. If they made abnormally high profits in the short run, and many did, these usually constituted windfall gains to capable entrepreneurship. This argument was made many years ago, but it seems to have been forgotten. See Allen, G. C. and Donnithorne, Audrey G., Western Enterprise in Far Eastern Economic Development, China and Japan (New York, 1954)Google Scholar.

12. Yukiō, Saitō, “Jihengo ni okeru ryōson no henka” (“The transformation of the grain wholesalers after the Manchurian incident”), Mantetsu Chōsa Geppō, 16:3 (03 1937), Pt. 1, pp. 2–14Google Scholar; see also 16:4 (April 1937), Pt. 2, pp. 39–40.

13. For evidence of wheat exports see “Manshō ni okeru komugi no shukkai sōryō” (“The quantity of wheat exports in Manchuria”), Chōsa Jihō, 4:3 (03 1924), pp. 1–5Google Scholar. For foodgrain exports in general see Feis, Herbert, “The international trade of Manchuria,” International Conciliations (1931), pp. 244–5Google Scholar.

14. Bix, p. 431.

15. Amano Motonosuke, p. 37. Between 1908 and 1950 the index showing expansion of cultivated area rose approximately 70 per cent.

16. This can be seen in all of the 1934 village studies in the sections pertaining to individual crop cultivated area according to household for the years 1933 to 1934. See Kōtoku gannendo nōson jittai chōsa, 3 volumes.

17. Tung-pei wu-tzu tiao-chieh wei-yuan-hui yen-chiu-tsu ch'u-pan-che (comp.), Tung-pei ching-chi hsiao-tsung-shu liang-chung (Two Small Compendiums on the Economy of the Northeast) (Taipei, 1971), Vol. I, p. 33Google Scholar.

18. Chen, Nai-Ruenn, “Agricultural productivity in a newly settled region: the case of Manchuria,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 21:1 (10 1972), pp. 87–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. For information on the shabby performance of these farmer associations and the reasons for this, see Masanobu, Morihisa, “Hōtenshōka no nōkai no genjō” (“Current conditions of farmer associations in Feng-t'ien Province”) Mantetsu Chōsa Geppō, 13:2 (02 1933)Google Scholar. For an excellent account describing the history, organization, and activities of agricultural research stations in Manchuria see Chōsabu, Mantetsu, Nōji shisetsu oyobi nōji gyōseki (The Facilities for Agricultural Work and their Accomplishments) (Dairen, 1937)Google Scholar. The major achievements with respect to improving new seed varieties appears to have only begun to take place in the very late 1920s. This conceivably explains the absence of technological change in agriculture before 1931.

20. See Myers, Ramon H. and Ulie, Thomas R., “Foreign influence and agricultural development in northeast China: a case study of the Liaotung Peninsula, 1906–42,” The Journal of Asian Studies, 31:2 (02 1972), pp. 329–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21. The problem of how imperialism influenced China's modernization has rarely invited the dispassionate analysis of the scholar, foreign or Chinese. The issue, it seems to me, still remains that of examining foreign influence in China by social and political analysis to determine ultimately when the economic benefits of foreign trade, capital investment, and enterprise vanished and instead produced conditions detrimental to social stability and political unity. The emergence of foreign communities in cities and the purchase of real estate by foreigners require this kind of study in order to trace the pernicious influence foreigners had upon this society. These issues, as yet, have not been examined, and there are abundant primary records to undertake this task. See the survey reports on urban estate agent transactions collected in chōsaka, Mantetsu, Chū-Shi fudōsan kankō chōsa shiryō (Materials on the Survey of Traditional Customs Concerning Immoveable Property in Central China) (Shanghai, 1941–1942)Google Scholar.