[56]. See the Tsūshō Isan for August 3, 1903, and the Kokumin for January 7, 15, and 16, 1904.
[57]. 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.
[58]. An address by Mr. G. Hirose, a competent eye-witness, in the Dōbun-kwai Hōkoku, No. 48, November, 1903, pp. 15 ff. Official census, however, gives only 2806 Japanese in Manchuria (December 30, 1903). See the Tsūshō Isan for April 13, 1904, pp. 33–38.
[59]. Mr. Hirose, already mentioned, refers to a Japanese capitalist who started a lumber business in Kirin Province and another who discovered coal deposits near Harbin and began to mine them, both of whom, in spite of the permits they had received from the Chinese authorities by regular process, were driven away arbitrarily under threats of the Russian military. The Dōbun-kwai, No. 48, pp. 21–22.
[60]. The so-called Manchus, the original inhabitants of Manchuria, have migrated to China proper, which they conquered during the seventeenth century. The present inhabitants of Manchuria are immigrant Chinese, whose greater economic capacity has been rapidly developing this immensely rich territory.
[61]. An official report of the Province of Amur, dated June 22, 1903, denies that the actual cost of construction per verst was, as had been alleged, 150,000 rubles, but 113,183 rubles. The Tsūshō Isan for August 8, 1903, p. 46. A ruble is equivalent to about 51.5 cents.
In this connection, it is interesting to note in M. Witte’s report to the Czar after the former’s tour in the Far East in 1902, that the Siberian Railway had cost 758,955,907 rubles, but, with the Circum-Baikal section, would cost not less than 1,000,000,000 rubles, excluding the salaries of officers, expenses for soldiers, the Pacific fleet, harbor work, and the like. The Dōbun-kwai Hōkoku, No. 42, p. 30.
[62]. According to the “Past and Present of the Siberian Railway,” compiled in 1903 by the government committee in charge of the railway, as quoted in the Dōbun-kwai Hōkoku, No. 51, pp. 58–60.
[63]. M. Witte’s report of September, 1901, quoted in the Kokumin for October 1, 1904.
[64]. Consul Miller at Niu-chwang, in the U. S. daily Consular Reports, February 15, 1904 (No. 1877), p. 8.