Page "Terauchi Masatake" Paragraph 6

Other of Terauchi's policies also had noble goals but evil consequences.

For example, land reform was desperately needed in Korea.

The Korean land ownership system was a complex system of absentee landlords, partial owner-tenants, and cultivators with traditional but without legal proof of ownership.

Terauchi's new Land Survey Bureau conducted cadastral surveys that reestablished ownership by basis of written proof ( deeds, titles, and similar documents ).

Ownership was denied to those who could not provide such written documentation ( mostly lower class and partial owners, who had only traditional verbal " cultivator rights ").

Although the plan succeeded in reforming land ownership / taxation structures, it added tremendously to the bitter and hostile environment of the time by enabling a huge amount of Korean land to be seized by the government and sold to Japanese developers.