NATURE, MARKETS AND STATE RESPONSE: THE DROUGHT OF 1939 IN JAPAN AND KOREA
Large areas of Northeast Asia experienced drought in 1939. Agricultural production in Korea decreased significantly, but the drought did not cause famine in Japan despite its dependence on rice imports from Korea. The paper analyses the impact of the 1939 drought on the markets for rice and electricity in Japan. The authorities were ill-prepared for such a disaster but willing to use it for the purpose of covering for other problems. The drought thus accelerated the move of Japan's economic system towards a managed economy. A lower total rainfall in Japan in 1940 did not generate similar problems, suggesting that the broader political, economic, and social context is crucial to the identification of short-term climatic fluctuations as crises.
Two minima of the average rainfall at about the turn of the century and at about 1940 in the Far East
Secular changes as revealed by the readings of the river gauge at Hankow, China; rainfall records at Seoul since 1770 and annual totals of rainfall at six representative weather stations in Japan show two pronounced minima of the average rainfall at about the turn of this century and at about 1940. Thus this variation in rainfall was paralleled in the Far East, and it seems to have been of world-wide extent. Recent gradual increase of annual precipitation is really of great practical value for economical life in the Far East.
On the secular variation of annual totals of rainfall at Seoul from 1770 to 1944
The significance of the rainfall data at Seoul from 1770 to 1907 is discussed. Statistical studies on the rainfall data observed by Korean observers from 1770 to 1907 and the precipitation data observed by Japanese observers from 1908 to 1944 show that the rainfall observations can be taken to be reliable as a whole. There exist apparently well established cycles with a dry period from the 1880's to the 1910's in rainfall activity at Seoul.