1. The Kuomintang Revolution
The origins of the modern land reform movement in China are to be found in the revolutionary theories of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Born and reared in rural districts, the Father of the Chinese Republic knew only too well the seriousness of the Chinese agricultural and land problems. He was profoundly influenced in his early years by the social and economic program of the Taiping revolt and began to ponder over their possible solution. When he was laying down the broad outlines of his lifework, he saw to it that the proposed reforms must both be practicable and acceptable to the people and conform to the essential spirit of the revolution. In formulating his revolutionary platform at San Francisco in 1904, he included the "equalization of land rights" as one of the four main planks. The same idea was formally enunciated and its significance fury elaborated in the Declaration of the Tung Meng Hui, forerunner of the Kuomintang, issued at Tokyo in the next year. He further explained, in a speech on The Sanmin Principles and the Future of the Chinese Nation, delivered in 1906, that the solution of the land problem was the key to the solution of the social problem and that the "assessment of land values" and the "right of the public to all future increases in such values" should be the main measures to be adopted for the purpose. That was the most concrete statement which he had ever made on the subject before the Republican Revolution of 1911.
In the very first year of the Chinese Republic (1912) he went, after he had resigned his position as Provisional President, on a speaking tour from April to December and took the equalization of land rights as the principal theme of his speeches. In addition to the sixteen speeches then delivered, of which written records have been kept, he never failed to expatiate on the same topic in the following years whenever he had an opportunity to express his views on public questions. On the occasion of the formal founding of the Kuomintang in 1923 and at the epoch-making meeting of the Kuomintang First National Congress in 1924, the Principle of People's Livelihood was declared to be based on the regulation of capital and the equalization of land rights. The Manifesto issued by the Congress at the end of its sessions went into some detail on the second point and specifically provided for the public ownership of natural resources and insisted that "farmers who have no land and have fallen into the status I of tenants should be given land by the State for them to cultivate." It should be remembered in this connection that these provisions have served to guide the revolutionary movement in its next stage.
In the Program of National Reconstruction the charter of the Kuomintang Government, promulgated in April, 1924, the two principles of "equalization of land rights" and "public ownership of natural resources" were laid down in Articles 10 and 11, respectively.
Article 10 of the Program of National Reconstruction, reads: "When a district begins to have self-government, it must fix the value of all privately owned lands lying within its jurisdiction. The method to be adopted is this: The landlord is to declare the value of his land; the local government is to assess a land tax on the basis of the landlord's declaration; it may also have the right to purchase the land at its declared value. Thereafter, all increases in the value of land as a result of political advancement and social progress are to be enjoyed by all people of the district and not to be privately monopolized by the original landlord."
Article 11 of the same document reads: "Annual incomes from land, increases in land values, products on public lands, proceeds from mountains, forests, rivers, and lakes, and the benefits of mines and waterpower shall all go to the local government concerned and shall" be devoted to the development of popular enterprises, of the locality, to the care of infants and the aged, to the relief of the poor, the distressed, and the sick, and to various other forms of public needs,"
In Dr. Sun Yat-sen's systematic exposition of his Sanmin principles, he has given us a detail ed account of the objectives to be aimed at and the practical measures to be taken in the equalization of land rights and has defended the rights of the cultivator to acquire the land he is cultivating. Though it is a matter of profound regret that he was unable, owing to his early death, to see the implementation of his cherished ideas, the principles he had enunciated and the measures he had advocated received such popular support that they stirred up an unprecedented wave of revolutionary enthusiasm in 1926-27.
After the successful conclusion of the Northern Expedition against feudal warlords and the unification of the whole country under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, he convened a National Assembly in 1929 which promulgated a Provisional Constitution. The Legislative Yuan, which was subsequently created according to the provisions of the Provisional Constitution, tried to implement the principle of the equalization of land rights by enacting a Land Law in June, 1930. This was the first formal code of its kind and embodied certain essential features of land reform. Though it was by no means a perfect instrument, it could be improved upon and made to serve as an important leverage for the realization of Dr. Sun's Principle of People's Livelihood, if it was faithfully enforced. Unfortunately, most provisions of the law remained a dead letter from the moment of its enactment, partly because government leaders were doubtful of its practicability and intellectuals, reared in the atmosphere of an individualistic economy, were strongly hostile, and partly because the Chinese Communists were already in open rebellion and were preaching the gospel of agrarian revolution and condemning the principle of the equalization of land fights as a product of capitalism.
Throughout the decades of revolutionary movement initiated by Dr. Sun Yat-sen and carried out by his successor, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, though the theory of land reform has not been popularly understood the principle of the equalization of land rights has gained wide recognition at least among the more progressive elements. At the same time the peasants, awakened by the reverberations of the Nationalist Revolution, have demanded that they be freed from all oppressions and shackles. Thus at the highest watermark of the Kuomintang Revolution in 1926-27 Farmers' Unions were organized all over the country, and the first demand the peasants made through their unions were for the abolition of exactions and illegal taxes and for the reduction of farm rents. The strongest peasant organizations were found in Kwang- tung, Hunan, and Chekiang, where they lent valuable support to the military operations of the Northern Expedition. It was in the same Provinces that the demand, "To the tiller should belong the land he tills," was most emphatic. Chekiang was especially noteworthy for it was there that Mr. Shen Ting-yi, an energetic Kuomintang leader, actually effected a 25 per cent reduction of farm rents.
Looking back over the whole period, one is justified in saying that a fine beginning had been made by the Kuomintang in the late twenties and that the task of land reform would have proceeded smoothly, if the Chinese Communists had not resorted to armed rebellion in the years between 1928 and 1935. The work of peasant organization was necessarily suspended when the Reds rook up arms against the National Government, beginning with the Nanchang Uprising of August 1, 1927. In this way land reform was retarded.
2. The Chinese Land Economics Association
In the midst of his anti-Communist campaign in the summer of 1932, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek realized that the existence of the land problem was a latent menace to social stability and decided to work out ways and means for its solution. He summoned me to Hankow for an interview, and as a result of our discussions I was commissioned to draw up a program for the implementation of the principle of the equalization of land rights.
In the next few months I gathered together a group of experts and formed a Discussion Group in Nanking. We held frequent meetings and agreed on certain fundamental principles of land policy. We organized ourselves into the Chinese Land Economics Association, which was formally inaugurated in January, 1933, with twenty-six original members. Our membership kept on increasing from year to year until it was well over 500 in addition to 27 affiliated organizations at the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937. Our members were men and women who were either interested in the land problem as a theoretical study or taking aft active part in land administration.
The views of the Chinese Land Economics Association, which are embodied in a series of resolutions adopted in its annual conferences, map be summarized under the following headings:
a. Public and private rights and interests in land are to be clearly defined. The State has the right of eminent domain; private rights are to be confined to the current value of land and to usufruct on the basis of its rational utilization.
b. Land values are to be fixed strictly on the basis of the owner's own declaration as made by him to the Government. A progressive land tax not exceeding 8 per cent is to be levied on the basis of the value thus fixed. Likewise, rentals on either agricultural or urban lands may not exceed 8 per cent of the land values.
c. All future increases in land values through social progress are to accrue entirely to the public. The State may, in order to implement its land and economic policies, purchase any piece of land at its fixed value.
d. All lands presently under tenant cultivation are to be purchased by the State by the issuance of land bonds. Such lands, when purchased, are to be replotted into standard-sized farms to be allotted to farmers to cultivate. These farmers are to be instructed to undertake cooperative enterprises in technical matters and management, so that the utilization of lands may fit into the needs of State-planned economy as a whole.
e. Urban lands and special reconstruction areas are to be expropriated by sections and zones, and their utilization is to be strictly controlled by the State.
f. The reclamation and settlement of waste lands are to be undertaken either with State assistance or by the State itself. National defense settlement areas are to be created in the sparsely inhabited parts of the country in the northwest, and dependents of soldiers killed in action and refugees are to have first priority to be settled thereon.
g. Land administrations and land banks, both of which are to have unified functions and follow a systematic pattern, are to be established in order to exercise strict control over all lands and permit the free flow of land credit.
h. A cadastral survey and registration are to be undertaken scientifically by following the principles of promptitude, accuracy, and convenience.
These views are shared by all members of the Chinese Land Economics Association who have devoted all their efforts in the last twenty odd years to carry them out. The most important of their activities include the following items:
a. Constitutional Movement. The members of the Chinese Land Economics Association have always held that the principle of land reform, should be written into the national constitution. They were, accordingly, the first ones to offer their opinions when the Legislative Yuan began, in the mid-thirties, to draft the section dealing with land problems in the proposed constitution. Articles 141-144 of the Constitutional Draft promulgated on May 5, 1936, embodied practically all of their recommendations. The Constitution of the Republic of China, as finally adopted and promulgated in 1947, incorporates in Article 143 the main features of land reform which the Chinese Land Economics Association has advocated over a period of years.
Article 143 of the Constitution of the Republic of China reads:
"All lands lying within the territorial limits of the Republic of China belong to the entire citizen body. All ownership of land which a citizen has legally acquired shall be protected and restricted by law. Private lands shall pay the land tax according to their value, and the Government may purchase them at the same value.
"Minerals attached to land and natural powers that may be economically utilized for public benefit shall all belong to the State, whose right to them shall not be affected by the acquisition of ownership over any particular piece of land by any individual citizen.
"Any increase in land value which is not the result of the application of labor or capital shall be subject to a tax on increments of land values to be levied by the State, and shall be enjoyed by the people as a whole.
"In land distribution and land replanning, the State shall, as a matter of principle, help those to acquire land who need it for their own cultivation or use, and shall regulate the appropriate size of land to be so cultivated or used."
b. Revision of the Land Law. On the basis of the fundamental principles of land policy formulated by the Discussion Group mentioned above the members of the Chinese Land Economics Association proceeded to examine the Land Law of June, 1930. They found that it needed revision and boldly understood to bring it about. The task was officially initiated in August, 1934, -when the Land Committee of the National Government requested the Association for opinions on four proposals laid before the Central Political Council. The Association called a special conference for the purpose and submitted a report in November of the same year. The question was debated at length in the Central. Political Council between October, 1936 and. May, 1937, and resulted in the final adoption of 22 out of the 24 original recommendations made by the Association. In the subsequent debates in the Legislative Yuan the question of a progressive land tax, which had been shelved by the Central Political Council, was taken up anew with much ardor on both sides, but no final decision was arrived at. A few years later in the course of the Sino-Japanese War, the National Defense Supreme Council urged the Legislative Yuan to expedite the revision of the Land Law, which was eventually· completed in 1946. The Law, as revised, incorporates practically all the recommendations of the Association.
c. Reform of Tenancy System and Promotion of Peasant Ownership. As the traditional Chinese tenancy system was a relic of the past and was defective and even positively harmful in many ways, the Chinese Land Economics Association has consistently advocated its reform and, with that end in view, has advanced a series of proposals ranging from rent reduction and protection of farmers to the promotion of peasant proprietorship. We planned to try our ideas first at Chih Tung, Kiangsu, and then in northern Shensi, but, owing to lack of sufficient, support from the local authorities, our plan did not materialize. We were encouraged, however, by the enthusiastic response of certain sections of the general public and, especially, the peasants themselves. The experiment was next tried at Lungyen, Fukien, during the Sino-Japanese War, and proved to be an extraordinary success mainly because of adequate financial support. Consequently, another experimental center was established at Peipei near Chungking, the wartime capital. After V-J Day the Chinese Land Economics Association, together with 21 other academic societies, drew up a Memorandum on Chinese Rural Rehabilitation which particularly emphasized the importance of land reform and foreshadowed, in away, the formation of the Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction and its sponsorship of rent reduction and other projects of land reform. The Association was also influential in bringing about general reductions of farm rent in. Kwangsi and Szechuen. Its most outstanding achievement in this respect was, of course, the rent reduction movement in Taiwan, in which over one hundred members of this Association took a personal part in responsible capacities.
d. Wartime Land Reclamation and Settlements and the Allotment of Land to Veterans. Years before the Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Land Economics Association had given close attention to the question of the settlement of the southwest and northeast, and had made field investigations of waste lands in those regions and drawn up plans for the utilization and improvement of arable lands there. As soon as the war broke out, it immediately recommended a concrete wartime land policy and the allotment of land to veterans. Its recommendations were favorably received by both the national and local governments as well as public and private organizations. Settlement areas public and private, came into being thick and fast in the next few years, and culminated in the establishment of the Central Reclamation Administration in 1940. The Association convened at Chungking in June, 1944, a Conference on Wartime Land Policy in order to ascertain the opinions of a wider group of social leaders and at the same time, to draw public attention to the movement for the allotment of land to veterans. Though the latter movement, became rather general throughout the country, for a time after V-J Day, it was soon retarded by the outbreak of the Communist conflagration and remains an important task to be carried out by Free China.
e. Cadastral Survey and Registration. Since land reform and increased financial revenues have to be based on an up-to-date cadastral survey and registration, the Chinese Land Economics Association has always advocated the employment of scientific methods to make an overall survey of the whole country. This idea, which has been repeatedly emphasized in successive Annual Conferences, was shared by all affiliated member societies of the Association and was energetically pushed forward in Kiangsu, Chekiang, Anhui, Kiangsi, Hunan, Hupeh, Kwangtung, and many metropolitan cities. The progress made in the provincial surveys up to July, 1937, was most gratifying, and I am proud to say that most of our members took a personal part in the work. Especially noteworthy are the aerophotographic surveys made in Kiangsi, part of Kiangsu, and the Pinghu Experimental District. In the Five Year Plan drawn up by the National Government in 1937, it was in tended to complete both the survey and the registration throughout the nation in three stages. Unfortunately, the Sino-Japanese War proved to be a stumbling-block in the successful prosecution of the plan. But even under circumstances of extreme difficulty the project was not entirely abandoned, and field teams were busy working in Shensi, Kansp, Szechuen, and Yunnan all through the war. By V-J Day most of the cities and towns not under enemy occupation had their cadastral survey completed. It was pleasantly anticipated that, with the coming of peace, full advantage could be taken of the wartime aeronautical installations to complete the remaining part of the task. But the nation wide military operations initiated by the Chinese Reds effectively put an end to all our fond hopes.
f. Land Credit and Land Administration. The creation of organizations to take charge of land credit and land administration is an indispensable condition for the successful implementation of a sound land policy. The necessity for such organizations formed the subject of numerous statements issued by the Chinese Land Economics Association, which sought by every means, both direct and indirect, to make possible their early establishment. Though the general public were mostly surprised on first hearing of land banks and considered land administrations as superfluous, they gradually came to share our views as time went by. As a result of our ceaseless endeavors, regulations and statutes governing land administration's under Provincial and Distract Governments were adopted and administrative departments were set up. The Kuomintang Central Executive Committee decided, in its plenary session of July, 1940, to establish a Chinese Land Bank; there was created a Department of Land Credit in the Chinese Farmers' Bank in June, 1941; on the retrocession of Taiwan to Chinese sovereignty after V-J Day there was inaugurated the Taiwan Land Bank, the first of its kind in China. A Central Land Administration was set up in June, 1942, and was subsequently transformed into a Ministry in May, 1947.
While the foregoing accomplishments of the Chinese Land Economics Association are mainly practical in nature, the theoretical aspect of its activities is also worth mentioning. There is, first of all, the Chinese Research Institute of Land Economics, which came into being in December, 1940, when, owing to the reorganization of the Central Institute of Political Science, of which the Graduate School of Land Economics had been an integral part, the latter School was discontinued and the Association decided to establish the Research Institute to fill the void. It was divided, at its inauguration, into four Departments of Land Economics, Land Administration, Land Credit, and Land Reclamation, and was staffed with tutors, research fellows, and assistants. It took ill research students to be trained as technical workers in the general field of land administration. When the Chienkuo College of Law and Commerce was established in Nanking at the end of the Sino Japanese War, the Institute was made a part of it. In recent years the Institute has been transferred to Taiwan, where it is carrying on as usual. It has compiled some thirty special studies and monographs.
Another work which the Chinese Land Economics Association has' done is the publication of several magazines. There were a weekly and a monthly in the mid-thirties, but both were suspended shortly after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. A fortnightly called Man and Land was then started in the spring of 1942 to take up the task left by its predecessors. It is a matter for regret that this and other publications sponsored by local chapter of the Association were forced to suspend when the Chinese Communists overran the mainland.
It will be seen from this brief account that the Chinese Land Economics Association has been, in the last twenty odd years, the prime mover in the Chinese land reform movement and that it has contributed a fair share to carry out Dr. Sun Yat-sen's principle of the equalization of land rights. In spite of all that, we are conscious that we have yet a long way to go before we can fully realize our program and see the establishment of a new social order.
3. The Chinese Land Reform Association
The Chinese Land Reform Association arose out of a discussion which a group of friends had held in Chungking, the wartime capital, a year before V-J Day. We were speculating on post-war reconstruction and visualizing to ourselves the sort of China which might be expected to emerge out of the ruins of a protracted war. We wee worried over the political, economic, and social conditions of the times, because, underlying them all, there was the fundamental problem of land. It was this problem which prevented social progress, throttled economic development, menaced the people's livelihood, and lay at the root of the political malaise. Its solution would be imperative when the war should have ended. Unfortunately, not only the general public had no adequate conception of the seriousness of the question, but even many social leaders as well. We were convinced that a wider movement for land reform was an urgent need of the moment. As the Chinese Land Economics Association, whose activities we have briefly reviewed in the preceding section of this paper, was predominantly academic in membership, it could not be expected to reach all strata of the population. In order to make the appeal wider, we decided to form the Chinese Land Reform Association which aimed at the realization of political democracy and economic equality through the implementation of land reform.
The Chinese Land Reform Association held its first conference in Nanking in April, 1947, which was attended by 230 original members. Its membership increased to over 3,600 half a year later, with local chapters scattered through out important cities such as Shanghai, Tientsin, Tsingtao, Sian, and Canton and the Provinces of Kiangsu, Chekiang, Fukien, Shantung, Kwangsi, Kwangtung, Yunnan, Kweichow, Szechuen, Hunan, Hupeh, Honan, Shensi, Jehol, Kansu, Suiyuan, Taiwan, and Manchuria. By the end of the first year its membership had exceeded the 10,000 mark. According to its bye-law, its supreme authority is vested in the National Delegates' Conference, which makes policy decisions and elects a Board of 31 Directors and a Committee of 9 Supervisors.
The ultimate aim of the Chinese Land Reform Association is the establishment of an ideal China, a rich and prosperous country which enjoys national independence, political democracy, and economic equality. In a manifesto is sued on April 6, 1947, the Association proclaimed three fundamental principles as follows:
First, all natural resources such as mountains and forests, rivers and lakes, water-power, mines and profits arising out of the land as a result of social progress should be owned by the public and enjoyed by the people in common, and may not be monopolized or usurped by any individual or group of individuals.
Secondly, all agricultural lands, including cultivated fields, gardens, orchards, and pastures, except those operated by the government as national enterprises, or by local authorities as public enterprises, should be owned by the cultivators in order to realize the land-to-the-tiller principle and to wipe out landlordism and the tenancy system.
Thirdly, urban lands and lands lying within, areas of important economic reconstruction should be owned by the public as a matter of principle; newly opened-up and key areas should be taken over by the public as soon as possible; there should be active city-planning in order to wipe out speculation in land, to prevent commercial and industrial enterprises from falling victim to crushing rents, to promote the rational development of public reconstruction and to make it possible for all city dwellers to have healthy residences and gardens.
On the basis of these principles, the Chinese Land Reform Association formulated an 8-point program including, inter alia, the following points.
a. We hold economic equality to be the guiding principle which alone offers a sure guarantee of economic development and popular welfare. We demand that, under a carefully worked-out plan, national economy should be developed and industrialization should be introduced in order to solve the problem of people's livelihood. At the same time both the central and local authorities should have a sound financial system and lighten the people's financial burdens.
b. We hold that a sound land system is an important guarantee of the people's right to live, We firmly maintain that everyone should have equal right to acquire land, that the State should furnish adequate land to the people for purposes of residence and cultivation, and that it should, at the same time, reform the system of landownership (including the right of inheritance) in order to satisfy the demand for the equalization of land rights.
c. We hold that agricultural reform and rural reconstruction are the basis of economic prosperity and industrializati1m. The old-fashioned systems of cultivation and village organization, which have proved to be great impediments to agricultural progress, must be radically changed. Farm tenancy must be terminated as soon as possible. Poor peasants and tenant farmers must, unless assistance be given them to transfer to other occupations, obtain land immediately. The State should use its authority to direct the flow of rural population and help the peasants undertake broad schemes of rural reconstruction.
d. We hold that urban reconstruction and improved tenement-houses for city-workers are important factors contributing to social progress and a healthy life. Untidy, rotten, and disorderly conditions which prevail in cities ought to be completely changed, and the existence of slums should be wiped out. We maintain that every city ought to be reconstructed according to a definite plan and that every urban inhabitant, especially of the working class, ought to get a suitable living space.
e. As our soldiers are fighting for victory by the sacrifice of flesh and blood, they ought to be the first ones to be rewarded by the State which should implement, as soon as possible, the policy of allotting lands to veterans, so that everyone of them may enjoy the practical gifts of his country's land. As the same time, the State should carry out a policy of frontier-settlement to develop the frontier regions and make adjustments in the distribution of both people and land throughout the whole country.
Holding these views, members of the Chinese Land Reform Association decided to undertake the following tasks: a. Promotion of the land reform movement; b. Field studies and investigation of actual conditions bearing on land problems; c. Sponsoring of study and discussion groups to study and discuss various aspects of the land problem; and d. Publication of books and periodicals on land reform. A monthly magazine, Land Reform, which began as a semi-monthly on April 1, 1947, has been published in Taiwan since September, 1951.
In February, 1948, the Chinese Land Reform Association issued a Land Reform Project which aroused much popular interest. The text reads in part as follows:
a. It is the aim of land reform to allow the tiller to own the piece of land he tills. Therefore, all agricultural lands throughout the whole country should be immediately declared as being owned by their respective cultivators.
b. Farmers who are cultivating another person's land as his tenants are to become owner farmers by paying for its value by yearly installments and acquiring its ownership. The value of such lands is to be fixed at seven times the current annual rent and is to be paid off in 14 yearly installments. If the current annual rent exceeds 37.5 per cent of the cur rent annual yield, it is to be calculated on the basis of 37.5 per cent only.
c. When the present tenant-farmer acquires the ownership of his land, it is to be registered with the local government through the village or township tenant-farmers' union. If the tenant-farmer happens to be a member of family, in the direct line of descent, of a soldier on active duty, the value of the land which he must pay before he enters into its full possession is to be paid for him by the Government.
d. Beginning with the payment of the first installment on the land value, ownership of the land passes immediately from the original landlord to the tenant-farmer. The original landlord ceases to pay the land tax and the Government is not to levy any other tax on what he gets as compensation for his land. The new owner-farmer who has acquired the land is to be responsible for the payment of the land tax which, before he has paid the last installment of the land value; must not exceed ten per cent of the land's annual produce.
e. Any arrears in rents which the tenant farmer was unable to pay before this Project comes into force are not to be subject to claims. If, after this Project has come into force; there should be any crop failure, the Government may decide, in the light of circumstances of the moment, to allow the postponement of a part or the whole of that year's annual installment payment on account of the land value.
f. No one who is not an actual cultivator of land may be permitted to buy agricultural land. All owner-farmers, both old and new, are to join the local agricultural cooperative society.
g. In order to carry out land reform the tenant-farmers of each district should form themselves into a tenant-farmers' union to undertake the task of land registration and to serve as an intermediary agency for the receipt and payment of land values.
In the first session of the Legislative Yuan elected under the new Constitution of 1947, I had the privilege, together with eighty other members, of introducing a Land Reform Bill on behalf of the Chinese Land Reform Association. It was the occasion for a tumultuous debate. The more conservative members launched a fierce attack on the proposed bill, where as others demanded the outright nationalization of land. The question hung fire during the entire session and finally ended by being referred to a Joint Committee for further consideration. The debates were extensively featured in the leading newspapers and magazines of the country. Though the bill never became law, it received favorable comments from many sections of the public. The Provinces of Kiangsi, Hunan, and Kwangsi went so far as to draw up, in the spirit of the bill, separate project of their own to be put into effect in their respective jurisdictions. But, owing to the rapid advance of the Communist armies, they had not been able to realize their plans before the Reds came.
When the Chinese Land Reform Association was removed to Taiwan in 1949, the Taiwan Provincial Government was just beginning to implement land reform measures. In order to lend a helping hand in the reform movement, this Association started a membership campaign and set up local chapters in various parts of the Province. There was held at Taipei on July 8-9, 1951 the Second National Delegates' Conference, which drew up and passed two important resolutions, one on Land Policy for the Chinese Mainland after its Liberation and the other on Agricultural Land Reform in Taiwan. A new membership drive was launched; the publication of the Land Reform; which, as a semi-monthly, had been suspended since September, 1948, was resumed beginning from September, 1951; plans for the compilation of special studies and monographs were drawn up; the Chinese Research Institute of Land Economics was revived and another batch of research students were admitted. By this time, local chapters and branches of the Association were set up in various parts of the Province of Taiwan with membership scattered all over the island.
At the time of the Second National Delegates Conference in July, 1951, the Taiwan Provincial Government was actively planning to implement further land reform measures after the completion of a farm rent reduction project. No wonder that the Conference devoted much of its time to a discussion of proposals for agricultural land reform. The resolution passed by the Conference on Agricultural Land Reform in Taiwan, which was to exert a profound influence on the subsequent implementation of the land-to-the-tiller policy, outlined a 7-point program as follows:
a. To undertake a general landownership classification for the Province as a whole in order to find out the actual condition of landownership distribution in Taiwan.
b. To fix the area that any landlord may be permitted to retain for himself to be one chia* of paddy field or two chia or dry land, and to require that any land in excess of this limit should be compulsorily purchased by the Government to be resold to the incumbent cultivators.
c. To fix the value of land to be compulsorily purchased from landlords and resold to incumbent cultivators at two and a half times the annual main crop yield.
d. To pay for the value of land compulsorily purchased from landlords with cash, land bonds redeemable with farm crops, and public enterprise stocks in certain definite proportions according to the area of land thus purchased.
e. To fix a period of ten years as the duration for the redemption of the land bonds.
f. To lay it down as a basic principle that the annual installment payment on account of land value and the land tax by the farmer purchaser shall not exceed 37.5 per cent of the annual main crop yield.
g. To designate the farm tenancy committees on the hsien, city, village, township, and district levels as assisting agencies for the implementation of land reform in Taiwan.
The farm tenancy committees, referred to in the preceding paragraph, were organized in 1952. There was one such committee in each hsien, city, village, township, and district, composed of representatives elected by tenant farmers, owner-farmers, and landlords. In order to coordinate governmental policy and our activities, most of the committee members joined the Chinese Land Reform Association. When the land-to-the-tiller program was implemented in 1953, almost all the working staff were members of the Association and were able to make use of the facilities offered by our local chapters and branches to help carry out that program.
The Chinese Land Reform Association held its Third National Delegates' Conference at Taipei on November 11-12, 1954. Two important resolutions were adopted by the Conference: one on Land Policy after our Recovery of the Chinese Mainland and the other on Proposals, for Future Land Reform in Taiwan. The latter resolution takes into account the many problems that yet remain to be tackled in our efforts to bring about a comprehensive program of land reform in Taiwan. The following is a summary of the proposals incorporated in the resolution:
a. All presently tenanted lands should be owned by their present cultivators in conformity to the land-to-the-tiller principle: (1) The present cultivators of tenanted lands that are being retained by landlords should be given loans so that they may buy those lands as soon as possible, (2) All presently tenanted lands that are being administered by the Government or public enterprises should, except those that are absolutely needed for purposes of experiment and demonstration, be offered for sale to their present cultivators.
b. A law for the protection of owner-farmers should be enacted to give them real and effective protection: (1) There should be created as soon as possible a production fund, out of which loans may be made to owner-farmers at low rates of interest. (2) The ownership of all owner-cultivated land should be transferred only to one who can undertake its cultivation himself and no subdivision of land should be permitted when the ownership of such land is transferred through inheritance. (3) The Government should give encouragement and assistance on a high-priority basis to owner-farmers in their efforts to improve production. (4) In order to maintain a steady supply of raw materials for industries, the use to which any owner-operated land is put may not be changed without the permission of competent authorities.
c. A standard farm law should be enacted and promulgated, and a standard farm system should be enacted by stages and localities: (1) The unit area for different kinds of standard farms should be prescribed, and the work of agricultural land replotting should be proceeded with by stages and regions. (2) Any farm which is smaller than a standard farm after going through the processes of subdivision, consolidation, and interchange and after replotting may continue to be operated, and the Government should grant loans on a high-priority basis to such farms for their development and expansion. (3) If a farm is offered for sale after replotting, the owner of any neighboring farm which is smaller than the unit area of a standard farm should have first priority of purchase. (4) The Government should determine the specific use to which any standard farm shall be put by taking into consideration the actual condition of land use and the state of economic development. (5) Technical assistance and loans for the improvement of production should be granted to standard farms. (6) Owner-operated farms or standard farms should be encouraged to adopt various cooperative methods in order to achieve better farm management and yield more income.
d. Urban lands should be divided into zones and replanned by zones in order to meet the needs of modernization: (1) Old cities and townships should be fundamentally replanned; their streets and roads, ditches and sewers, public squares, parks, and other installations for public use and public welfare should be improved and constructed according to definite plans. The ownership of urban lands should be gradually taken over by the public. (2) Plans for the development of areas close to old cities and townships should be worked out as soon as possible in order to build up bigger urban centers and meet the needs of wartime dispersal. All lands lying within any area for the construction of bigger urban centers should be taken over by the public before the work of construction begins.
e. Public and private financial organizations should be encouraged to form investment trusts to assist in the construction of public buildings and the improvement of citizens' dwelling-houses in cities and townships: (1) Public buildings and citizens' dwelling-houses in cities and townships should be constructed by the investment trusts according to definite plans and stage by stage. The money thus invested should be repaid to the investment trusts in the form of fees, rental charges, or sales proceeds. (2) Any citizen who wants to make improvements on his dwelling-house may, to cover the cost, apply to financial organizations for low-interest loans to be repaid by installments.
f. All lands should pay the land value tax; all unearned increments should accrue to the public, and land bonds may be issued to pay for lands purchased by the Government according to their declared values: (1) On urban lands, a progressive land value tax should be levied according to their declared values; on agricultural lands, a land value tax should be levied (instead of the original farm land tax) after their values have been assessed for each particular area, but this land value tax may, in wartime, be paid with farm products by duly converting it into equivalents of farm crops according to the land value tax. (2) As part of the policy to protect owner-farmers, the land value tax on owner-operated lands should not be levied on a progressive scale. (3) All unearned increments should accrue to the public. (4) To promote land utilization and make readjustments in land distribution, land bonds may be issued for the purchase of lands according to their declared values, but the purchase of standard farms should be avoided as far as possible.
g. The principle of state ownership of natural resources lands should be more vigorously enforced. The management of all such lands which are being directly administered by the Government itself should be improved, and its efficiency be increased. With respect to lands that are being exploited by private individuals according to law, the value of their natural resources should be re-assessed so that the incomes accruing thereform may go to the public. Taiwan is rich in natural resources. Its forests, water power facilities, fisheries; and salt fields are fairly large. Its contains within its bowels an abundant supply of gold, copper, coal, petroleum, sulphur, and asbestos. It is to be regretted, however, that too many forests have been felled in recent years. One of the most urgent tasks to be attended to in order to promote the better utilization of land is the delimitation of lands that are suitable for afforestation, for pasturing, and for farming, respectively.
Such are the proposals the Chinese Land Reform Association would like to be carried out in Taiwan in the coming years. The task involves the protection of the newly established owner-farmers so that they may not again sink to the status of tenants, on the one hand, and the adoption of financial and other measures in order to enable all the remaining landless tenant farmers to acquire land, on the other. At the same time, urban land reform should also be undertaken.
With 4,500 members recruited from among farmers, youth, people's representatives, land administrators, land bank staff workers, and land problem experts and with local chapters and branches scattered all over Taiwan proper and even as far as Kinmen, the Chinese Land Reform Association stands ever ready to lend a helping hand in the implementation of further land reform measures in the future.
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*1 chia=0.9699 hectare, or 2.3968 acres.
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Life Ambition
Two poor scholars were relating to each other their life ambitions. One said, "During my whole lifetime what I have never had enough are only two things: eating and sleeping. Should one day my ambition be realized, I certainly would eat to the full and then drop into sleep, and waking up from sleep, to begin eating again." The other one said, "My idea is slightly different. I would eat and eat and eat. How could I find time to sleep?"
From Su Shih: Tung-po Chih Lin