The origin of the modern land reform movement in China is to be found in the revolutionary theories of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. He held that land should be owned under a system in which the owner should be required to report the monetary value of his land to the Government; that the Government should have the right to assess a land tax on the basis of the owner's report; that, in order to prevent speculation in, and monopoly of lands, the Government should have the right to purchase the land at the value reported to it by the owner; and that any natural increase in the value of lands should go to the Government. Dr. Sun described his own views as the "equalization of land rights". He further insisted that the cultivator should own the land which he cultivated, because he knew only too well that under the prevailing system of tenancy the tenant farmer was the object of exploitation by the landlord. He would, in other words, deprive the landlord of the right to use his land as a means of exploitation. These revolutionary views are all in line with the ideals of modern land reformers, but it is a pity that they were not put into practice because his death preceded the Nationalist Revolution of 1926.
With the establishment of the National Government in 1927, measures were taken to translate Dr. Sun's ideas into law. Consequently, the Land Law promulgated in 1930 was drawn up largely on the basis on his views. But owing to the people's ignorance of the law and to indecision on the part of the Government, it has remained a dead letter ever since. Nevertheless, had it been carried into execution, it could not have satisfied the real needs of the great majority of the peasants inasmuch as the procedural details were not effective enough.
China has not been able to attain economic stability for many decades, due mainly to the inability of large masses of the peasantry to make both ends meet. These comprise two kinds of people. On the one hand, there are the tenant farmers who form 26 to 30 per cent of the farming population. They cultivate small pieces of land on lease and have to pay heavy rents, which generally amount to 50 or, in extreme cases, as much as 80 per cent of the annual produce. On the other hand, there are. the small independent farmers who form about 57 per cent of the farming population. They generally cultivate less than fifteen mou of land and have to pay heavy taxes, which amount to approximately 20 per cent of the annual produce. Both classes, who make up over 80 per cent of the entire farming population, and also, comprise approximately 80 per cent of the inhabitants of the whole country, are pitiably poor. They lead a precarious existence; whenever any natural calamity or political upheaval befalls them their livelihood is at once called into question. They constitute, indeed, the principal cause of long periods of civil commotion in China. That is why the demand for land reform has become so urgent, and a group of scholars interested in the problem have banded together to form the Chinese Association of Land Economics to make an objective study of the question and to sponsor practical reforms.
The founder of the Chinese Association of Land Economics is Mr. Hsiao Cheng* who has engaged in revolutionary work for many years and who is an enthusiast for Dr. Sun's views on land reforms. After the successful conclusion of the Nationalist Revolution in 1927, he went to Japan and Germany to make a special study of the land problem. When he was in the latter country, he came into intimate contact with the leading spirit of the German land reform movement, Herr Adolf Damaschke, and with the Association of German Land Reformers. He spent much time on the study of the land systems of European countries and the ways with which they solved their land problems after World War I. When he returned to China in 1930, he initiated the Chinese Association of Land Economics and began a series of field investigations and studies. The next year he became Director of the Graduate School of Land Economics, Central Institute of Political Science and held the position until 1941. The Association has made numerous proposals for land reform, and the School has trained a number of research scholars and practical workers inland administration.
In 1941 when the Sino-Japanese War was proceeding with mounting fury, Mr. Hsiao terminated his work as director of the School of Land Economics and founded the Chinese Research Institute of Land Economics as a research organization for the study of the land problem. On the basis of its research work, the Institute demanded the reform of the land tax and tenancy systems throughout the provinces of Free China. From results obtained by field studies and from a purely theoretical approach, it insisted that either the land tax or farm rent should not exceed 8 per cent of the land value. This and other suggestions made by the Institute concerning the protection of small peasants and tenant farmers were all adopted by the Chinese Government as guiding principles in revising the Land Law. At the end of World War II in 1945, land reform became a popular cry. It was then that the Chinese Association of Land Economics was converted from an academic society into a social organization and, as such, it formulated in 1948 a concrete plan of Land Reform, which envisaged the enactment of a Law whereby all lands currently cultivated by tenants would immediately be owned by them, with the proviso that they pay to the original owner the value of the land, equivalent to seven times the current annual rent (which must not exceed 37.5 per cent of the annual yield) in fourteen yearly instalments. The draft of the plan was submitted by Mr. Hsiao to the Legislative Yuan, in his capacity as one of its members with the concurrence of 85 of his colleagues. Though the bill did not become law owing to the strong opposition it encountered among the ultra-conservatives, its essential points won the hearty approval of liberal elements in Hopeh, Honan, Kiangsi, and Kwangsi where Provincial regulations were drawn up in conformity with its spirit. Unfortunately, however, no province was able to put it into actual operation because the entire Chinese mainland was soon overrun by the Communists. But it should be noted that the proposals made by Mr. Hsiao and his friends still remain fundamental principles for the solution of the problem of agricultural land in Free China, and that the Chinese Government in Formosa is formulating policies concerning agricultural land in the light of those proposals, in preparation for the day when it is called upon to cope with the problem after the eventual collapse of the Communist regime.
II. Proposals for Land Reform in China and the Extent of its Achievements
The concrete proposals for land reform in China, which are the result of expert study over a period of years and which meet with popular approval, may be briefly summarized under the following headings.
(1) Agricultural land should belong to those who till it. Tenant farmers should obtain ownership of the land which they are currently tilling and the present system of landlordism be wiped out altogether.
(2) The amount of land owned by the present small peasants, including those who newly obtain ownership of the land they till under the previous heading, should be gradually increased so that it may fulfill all the requirements of a standard farm, by which is meant a farm big enough to maintain a family of ten above the subsistence level. For this purpose, the existing tiny farms and bits of land should be re-grouped and re-allocated. The State should initiate nation-wide programmes of village reconstruction, which include water conservancy, village roads, peasants' dwellings, public works, and the reclamation of waste lands, in order that those who obtain no land in the re-allocation of farms may find employment in these useful pursuits. As a result of the re-grouping of farms, the number of farmers in proportion to the entire population will gradually decrease, which is in conformity with the general tendency in all modern states.
(3) Owners of agricultural lands should be required by the State, as part of its planned economy, to plant certain staple products. The standard farms should be given technical and financial assistance by cooperatives, so that they may gradually adopt cooperative methods and become fairly large farms, which will one day be in a position to apply mechanical power to the cultivation of land as is done by modern large-scale agricultural enterprises.
(4) The agricultural tax should be levied on the basis of the value of agricultural land, and the maximum should not exceed 8 per cent of the current value. After paying the agricultural tax, the land should be free from all other levies. If the farmer, owing to emergency reasons, leases his land to another person for cultivation, the rent, likewise, should not exceed 8 per cent of the land value, or 37.5 per cent of the main crop if the rent is paid in kind.
(5) Urban lands should be taxed on a progressive scale, and any natural increase in their value should go to the Government. In planning for new, cities, the Government should exercise the right of eminent domain before the plan is actually carried out, and all and within the precincts of the city should be divided into regions, each of which would be used only for a specific purpose.
(6) The Government may, for the promotion of public welfare, exercise the right of eminent domain over all private lands.
(7) All natural resources both below and on the surface of the earth should be owned by the State.
(8) The Government should establish a complete system of land administration and Land Banks as agents for the implementation of its land policies.
After years of persistent effort, the most important principles contained in the above proposals have been incorporated in the 1947 Constitution. Other points were previously incorporated in the amended Land Law of 1938. There remains only one principal feature which has not yet become law, namely, the transformation of lands now being cultivated by tenants into property owned by the cultivators themselves. And that is why the Chinese Land Reforms Association went on to draw up in 1948 a new programme for the reform of agricultural land along the following lines:
(a) That all lands shall be owned by farmers who cultivate them, beginning from the enactment of the law.
(b) That the land now being cultivated by tenant farmers shall be sold by the landlord to the present tenants.
(c) That the sales value of such land shall be fixed at seven times the amount of the current rent, which shall be payable by the present tenant in fourteen yearly instalments. The payment shall be effected by transferring to the landlord one half of the current rent annually for fourteen consecutive years, at the end of which time the sale is completed. If the amount of the current rent should exceed 37.5 per cent of the main crop, the sales value shall, nevertheless, be calculated on the· basis of 37.5 per cent.
(d) Beginning from the year in which the law is promulgated, the present cultivator shall be regarded in principle as having acquired ownership of the land and shall be held responsible for the payment of the land tax, which shall be 8 per cent of the land value, or 10 per cent of the main crop. Beginning from the same year, the original landlord shall not be held responsible for the payment of the land tax.
(e) The transfer of ownership and the payment of the sales value shall be made through the supervision of the local Tenant Farmers' Union.
Though the above programme has not yet been enacted into law, it is, in the opinion of the experts, the correct approach to solve the complicated problem of agricultural land in China.
The Chinese land reform movement in the last two decades has, in addition to persuading the intellectuals to champion the cause of land reform in China, trained and developed a staff of some 14,000, including those trained in the different provinces and districts, who are qualified and ready to carry out the Government's land policies. These individuals, from whom most of the higher rank land administrators in the various provinces are recruited, are widely scattered all over the country and are the best exemplars of land reform. As they believe in letting the farmer own the piece of land he is cultivating, they may be said to be anti-Communist liberals, who are opposed to the ultimate Communist policy of land nationalization. Though the great majority of them are stranded for the time being in territories under Communist rule, they continue to correspond with members of the Chinese Land Reform Association and will eventually re-emerge as faithful workers for the implementation of land reforms under a Free Chinese Government.
III. Chinese Research Institute of Land Economics
The Chinese land reform movement originated on the lecture platform and has always been identified with research organizations. The School of Land Economics, Central Institute of Political Science, undertook under the direction of Mr. Hsiao as far back as 1931 a vast programme of research work. The School was divided into the four Departments of Land Economics, Land Policy, Agrarian Finance, and Land Cultivation, and was staffed with professors, research fellows, and assistants who made field investigations and conducted theoretical studies. It published the "Land Administration Monthly" and the "Man and Land Fortnightly", and a series of special studies and monographs. It also undertook the translation into Chinese of several standard works on the land problem.
When it was decided to wind up the School in 1941, the Chinese Research Institute of Land Economics was immediately established with Mr. Hsiao as director at Chungking. The Institute was also divided into four departments, and a certain number of graduate students were admitted each year. After VJ-Day it was transferred to Nanking, where a new building was erected and additional facilities were provided. Unfortunately, as the Communist war spread southward, the Institute had to be removed to Taiwan. It is continuing to study the land policies that should be adopted after the Communist menace has been removed.
When the policy of rent reduction was carried out in Taiwan a year ago, the Institute was requested by the Sino-American Rural Rehabilitation Commission to make an objective study of its results. For the compilation of the report, which has been separately printed and is available to the general public, the Institute sent its field teams, covering more than one-third of all Taiwan villages, 3,967 families of different grades of tenant farmers, 1,032 families of peasant-proprietors, and 493 families of land-lords. The final report was drawn up on the basis of the observations and materials thus obtained. It went into many practical problems, for which reliable information had been secured from the peasants. It represented, as it were, a Gallup poll of the Taiwan farmers.
The Institute is recovering from the effects of the war, and promises to be the leading force in the Chinese land reform movement of the future. When the Chinese mainland is able to enjoy liberty and democracy once more, the twenty-year-old Chinese Association of Land Economics of which the Institute is the research organ, will have important contributions to make.
* Mr. Hsiao Tseng, born in 1905 in Ckekiang, China, is a member of Legislative Yuan. He was formerly Director, School of Land Economics, central Institute of Political Science; President, Chienkuo College of Law and Commerce. Nanking member, National Defense Supreme Council and concurrently, Chairman. Economic Committee, National Defense Supreme Council; Vice-Minister of Economies; member. National Economic Council; founder. Chinese Land Reforms Association; member, Board of Directors, Farmers' Bank of China. He, is also President of the Chinese Land Reform Association; Director of the Chinese Research Institute of Land Economics and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Taiwan Land Bank.