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Industrialization and the Rice-Processing Industry in Taiwan Under Japanese Rule, 1895–1945

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Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to show that there was a close relationship between Japanese food policy, which gave Taiwan a central role in supplying rice, and the development of small-scale industries in Taiwan. The analysis focuses on the development of the rice-processing industry, which was typical of small-scale industries in Taiwan in this period. The conclusions can be summarized as follows:

The introduction of small motors in the 1920s–1930s led to the emergence of rice processing in Taiwan as a small-scale industry. This was a result of the active response of Taiwanese rice dealers, who introduced reforms to their collection networks and processing technologies in response to Japanese agricultural policy, and to the new economic relationship with Japan which developed as a result.

The development of the rice-processing industry led to small-scale industrialization’s becoming a pattern of colonial industrialization. It caused, firstly, the formation by Taiwanese business owners of small-scale industries, based on their dominance over the circulation of rice in Taiwan, and secondly, colonial limitations on industrialization, due to the strong connection with agriculture and the small scale of the industry’s businesses.

This chapter is a translation of an article that originally appeared in Shakai Keizai Shigaku 67(1) (May 2001), pp.23–46.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The following is a simple description of rice processing. When rice is harvested, it is still in its hull: that hull must be removed in order to turn it into brown rice. Ordinarily, the rice is then stored in the form of that brown rice, and then, prior to being consumed, it is processed into white rice by cutting the bran off the brown rice. That end result is “milled” or “polished rice.”

  2. 2.

    In the early factory surveys in the Government of Taiwan ’s statistical reports, “factories” were defined as manufactories with over 10 operatives, but that was soon changed. Again, the number of operatives initially referred to the average over the year, but from 1929 forward, based on the ordinances pertaining to the Resources Survey Law , the figure was the absolute number at the end of the year.

  3. 3.

    Negishi 1942, p.72. According to Table 7 in Negishi, of 879 “comparatively large-scale hulling businesses that handled export rice” in 1932, 71 % were privately run, 15 % were joint-stock companies, and 8 % were under joint management.

  4. 4.

    However, according to Kōjō meibo [Factory directory], the number of female operatives was extremely small.

  5. 5.

    According to Tōhata and Ōkawa 1939/1935, p.402, of 2011 rice-processing factories in 1929, 586 (29 %) were run by Japanese, and Japanese accounted for 65 % of investment. However, simple comparisons between Taiwan and Chōsen are not possible, as their definitions of “factory” differ in the statistics.

  6. 6.

    However, it is unclear at this time whether the sharp decline in the number of businesses in 1922 is accurate or whether it is due to changes in survey methods.

  7. 7.

    The figures from 1911 to 1917 are the number of huling and milling factories using motive power, as recorded in the “Taiwan sangyō nenpō [Yearbook of industries in Taiwan]”. They are included here for reference, because leaving aside the question of the milling industry, the figures for the hulling industry at least can be linked to the post-1918 figures.

  8. 8.

    In the local language of Taiwan, tulong means “hull” and jian means “room”, so translated literally it means “hulling place”, but its meaning shifted to denote the huller himself (Kōmoto 1935, pp.11–12).

  9. 9.

    The same entry is in TSS 1912, p.19, a survey of conditions in the 1910s.

  10. 10.

    The survey was completed by November 1895.

  11. 11.

    Using the post-1920 administrative jurisdictions, these correspond to Taihoku and Shinchiku (Xinzhu) prefecture in the north, Taichū (Taizhong) prefecture in the center, and Tainan and Takao prefecture in the south.

  12. 12.

    The reason the number of factories using motive power declined sharply in 1917 is that they were recorded under the heading of “hulling industry”. In cases where hulling and milling were being handled jointly, the factory was listed under the dominant business, and therefore the hulling and milling industries cannot be finely distinguished in the materials. The fact that the number of “combination” businesses is high in central Taiwan in 1917, according to Table 4.7, affirms this interpretation.

  13. 13.

    The oil-powered engines of the southern sugar industry were converted for the first time to use in the rice-processing industry as a sideline in 1903–1904. (Sakamoto 1906–7) Again, the shift of oil engines from improved sugar plants that had gone out of business to the rice-processing industry is recorded in TSS 1917.

  14. 14.

    The Toyohara (Fengyuan) district in central Taiwan was the birthplace of Taiwanese water-wheel-based rice-milling industry (TSS 1926a, p.75).

  15. 15.

    For example, “Broadly speaking, milling factories in every region have mostly gone electric.... The machines they use are Nationals”. (TSS 1926a, p.75) “National” refers to the brand name of Japan’s Matsushita Electric.

  16. 16.

    The first attempt to transplant Japanese varieties of rice was made in 1896; from 1912 on, trials were done in every region and it was concluded that the north was most advantageous for the cultivation of Japanese rice. The 1922 crop was the first to be exported to Japan, and because it met with a positive reception, the acreage devoted to its cultivation expanded all at once the following year (TSS 1926a, pp.24–25).

  17. 17.

    The price of hōrai-mai relative to indigenous rice (market price of brown rice, third grade, equivalent to 60 kg) was 1.5 times in 1924. It then gradually dropped until stabilizing at about the 1.1 ~ 1.2 level in the 1930s. (TSB 1940b) Regarding the price advantage of hōrai-mai relative to sugarcane, see Tu 1975, pp.79–80, pp.105–106.

  18. 18.

    In economics studies, the landlord and the producer are different concepts, but here, both terms were used to mean suppliers of brown rice.

  19. 19.

    The original term for “coolie” meant literally “going directly to the villages to buy.”

  20. 20.

    There were many tulongjian in southern Taiwan; the dominance of the hulling trade can be explained by the presence of many sugarcane cultivators, and by the opportunity for secondary work that the sugar industry offered male laborers on the farm.

  21. 21.

    Regarding rice distribution in China, see Amano 1978/1953. In China, this type of distribution structure was the norm even in the late 1930s.

  22. 22.

    According to surveys carried out in 1928, of the 3.06 million koku of paddy rice from each district (including the rice that was not exported but that stayed in Taiwan), 71 % was handled by hullers, 28 % by hulling intermediaries, and 1 % by farm warehouses. (Based on calculations from entries in TSS 1935, pp.4–11, pp.14–17).

  23. 23.

    Early on, Taiwanese exporters also participated in exporting rice, but in the 1930s, the export rice trade was monopolized by four large trading companies: Mitsui Bussan, Mitsubishi Shōji, Katō Shōkai, and Sugihara Sangyō (Tu 1975, pp.204–205).

  24. 24.

    The purchase of unharvested rice seems to have been an old practice, but there are indications that it was further spurred by the practice of advance payments by exporters (TG 1913, p.43).

  25. 25.

    Subsequently, due to the high risk of defaults, the Export Associations gradually lowered the upper threshold on advance payments, and in the early 1930s, abolished the advance-payment system altogether. Regarding the course of development during that period, see TG 1920, pp.53–54, TSS 1926a, p.44, and TSS 1930, pp.135–136. This point is reinforced by the fact that in rice financing by the Bank of Taiwan , bills of exchange attached to cargo increasingly substituted for discounted bills after 1929.

  26. 26.

    2,702,222 bags, based on a conversion rate of 1 sack = 0.43 koku (indigenous rice basis), from TSB 1940a, p.36.

  27. 27.

    Hori Kazuo illustrates this, in Chōsen as well, at the macro level (Hori 1994a, b).

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Horiuchi, Y. (2016). Industrialization and the Rice-Processing Industry in Taiwan Under Japanese Rule, 1895–1945. In: Sawai, M. (eds) Economic Activities Under the Japanese Colonial Empire. Monograph Series of the Socio-Economic History Society, Japan. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55927-6_4

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