PHILIPPINES JAPANESE OCCUPATION - Rare Foreign Mail from Bacolod, Negros Occidental, 1944

To: KOBASHI Touzaburo and FUJII Masuai

Oojima, Kurashiki-Shi,

Okayama Prefecture, Japan

From: FUJII Kohei

Kurashiki Industries Negros Farm

No. 62 Luzuriaga Street

Bacolod City

Negros Occidental Province, The Philippines

COTTON DEVELOPMENT DURING THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION

Rare Foreign Mail from Bacolod, Negros Occidental, 1944

This is a rare example of a non-philatelic Japanese Occupation cover displaying the First Class 7-cents letter postal rate for Foreign Mail that became effective May 15, 1944 in the Philippines. It is franked with a single Scott #N4 "Thick Top Bar" type and a pair of Scott #N12. The stamps are tied to the cover with a poor but legible impression of the "BACOLOD OCCIDENTAL NEGROS, P.I." provincial postmark dated SEP 18, 1944, with the distinctive single numeral "4" representing "1944" (reference Garrett's "Bacolod -1b" provincial cancel). There are no receiving postmarks or censor markings.

What I find truly interesting about this cover is the story that it reveals through the addresses of the sender and the recipient. The cover is addressed to KOBASHI Touzaburo and FUJII Masuai, Oojima, Kurashiki-Shi, Okayama Prefecture, Japan, and the sender is FUJII Kohei, Kurashiki Industries Negros Farm, No. 62 Luzuriaga Street, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental Province, the Philippines. The cover is addressed on the front and back using Japanese kanji and furigana. Furigana is a Japanese reading aid, consisting of smaller kana, or syllabic characters, printed next to a kanji (ideographic characters) to indicate its pronunciation. In vertical text, or tategaki, they are placed to the right of the line of text.

During the Second World War, Japan pursued its "Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere" policy to promote economic and political cooperation among the conquered lands and the Empire. In reality, these policies forced conquered territories to provide natural resources that the Empire desperately needed. In the occupied Philippines, the Japanese initiated programs to develop agricultural industries that would provide commodities that best suited the Empire's needs and their markets.

Cotton received special attention as a major industry to be developed in the Philippines.  An ambitious five-year plan envisioned the Philippines becoming a major grower of cotton for the Empire. The strategy was to convert approximately 40% of farm lands, at that time devoted mainly to sugar, into cotton growing farms. This equated to about 92,000 hectares. The projected areas included lands in Luzon (Batangas, Bulacan, Pampanga, Bataan, Tarlac, Pangasinan, and La Union), in the Visayas (mainly Negros) and in Mindanao (Cotabato). This was a developmental program designed to introduce an important industry. Early efforts to set up cotton growing and a nascent industrial textile industry had already commenced in the Philippines, but the scale of this new program was massive.

The occupation authorities assigned Japanese cotton growing companies to provide expertise, supervision and resources to implement the cotton development program. Around ten companies were particularly active in this role.  These companies were: Daiwa Boseki Co., Kurashiki Boseki Co., Toyo Menka Co., Kanegafuchi Boseki Co., Kureha Boseki Co., Toyo Boseki Co., Toyo Takushoku Co., Taiwan Takakushoku Co., and Dai Nippon Boseki Co.  I believe the sender of this cover, an employee of the Kurashiki Boseki Company, was tasked with the administration or monitoring of this cotton development program in Negros Occidental.

The Japanese authorities adopted contract growing with Filipino farmers as the main method of implementing this program, in which the Japanese firms supervised the local farmers in the culture of the plant and bought the raw cotton from them. The cotton companies from Japan formed themselves into a Philippine Cotton Cultivation Association.  This association imported cotton seeds of different varieties, offered free distribution of these seeds with carabaos to Filipino planters, and provided grading and fixing of cotton prices all as an incentive for production.

However, these efforts ultimately failed to achieve their ambitious targets. The problem in part was the relative newness of the cotton program in the Philippines.  Experience with cotton growing would take time to develop, and climatic and soil conditions were natural factors that needed to be tested against for suitability of cotton varieties. Moreover, with food becoming a major problem during this period, the allocation of land to cotton conflicted with much needed food production.

Thus, Japan's attempt to develop cotton as a major industry in the Philippines failed, although there were some promising developments in some of the cotton growing areas. It is interesting to note that today, the Republic of the Philippines, Department of Agriculture has an agency, the Cotton Development Administration (CODA), which is tasked to undertake initiatives to spur the growth of the local Philippine cotton industry through cotton research, development and partnership with private industry. Progress is now being made to develop cotton into a major agricultural industry in the Philippines, but this growth takes experience and time. But in September 1944, the sun was setting for the Empire of Japan, and time was a commodity that was rapidly running out.

(Special thanks to Bobby Liao, Chair, APS Translation Committee) 

References:

Garrett, Eugene A., “A Postal History of the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines, 1942-1945”, 1992

Sicat, Gerardo P., "The Philippine Economy During the Japanese Occupation, 1941-1945", University of the Philippines, School of Economics, 2003