Their pillage of industrial crops in Korea was a hideous crime unprecedented in any other colonies in its gangster-like nature and shamelessness.

They robbed Korea of tobacco, cotton and various other industrial crops, to say nothing of grain.

For this purpose, they cooked up various evil laws to seize the rights to cultivation, production and purchase of the industrial crops and strictly control it.

They directed primary attention to the pillage of cotton. They worked out predatory plans such as "First Plan for the Encouragement of Cotton Cultivation" in 1912 and "Second Plan for the Encouragement of Cotton Cultivation" in 1919. And they mobilized even police to force cotton cultivation upon peasants irrespective of their will and stamped mercilessly the budding crops if they refused to meet their demand.

And they pursued a policy of exploiting industrial crops in a cunning way with the distribution of the products as a lever.

Through various exploiting systems, they carried away 34 percent of cotton output in the 1920s and over 80 percent in the 1930s. They purchased the cotton produced with much manpower at the price less than 18 percent of the world market price. To make matters worse, they plundered only quality cotton through the strict quality "appraisal".

From the end of 1930s, they openly deprived the peasants of cotton without paying its price through the "delivery system". The same predatory method was applied to tobacco and other industrial crops, too.

The Japanese imperialists' vicious pillage of industrial crops deformed the agricultural production structure of Korea, worsening the living conditions of the Korean peasants and the poverty in the countryside.

Japan should feel responsibility for it and make reparation for all the crimes at an early date.