조선총독부의 통계행정기구 변화와 통계자료 생산

Abstract

Right after its occupation of the Korean Peninsula, Japan abolished the Statistics Division which had been set up during the Korean Empire, but reestablished it in 1918. However, it abolished the division again in 1922, thus keeping an exclusive statistical authority only for a certain period of time. Japan frequently changed administrative structures in charge of statistics, as they revised the Administrative Regulation of “the Government-General of Korea” and the Regulation of Administrative Responsibilities of “the Government-General of Korea”. This meant instability in the colonial statistics administration system. Nonetheless, “the Government-General of Korea” placed the head of statistics not only in the central division, but even in terminal organizations of local departments in 1911 to ensure an unproblematic statistical report. Saito Makoto, who had been appointed as governor-general after the March 1 Independent Movement, addressed the importance of statistical work. Thereafter, the Governor-General not only held the statistics head meetings but also statistics exhibitions, and even implemented a reward system to encourage officials in charge of statistics to process them quickly and accurately. The Case Report is a report that evaluated the operating plan and legislation of “the Government-General of Korea” and guidelines for various work tasks in Colonial Korea. The Case Report was divided into a technical report and a statistical report but, as the statistical report comprised most of the report, the Case Report can be considered as the primary data source for producing statistics. Since the implementation of the Case Report System in 1911, the contents of the reports had changed according to the reorganization of “the Government-General of Korea” and statistical authorities. Based on the Case Report System, “the Government-General of Korea” published various research reports, either annual or monthly, on statistics for each department. Out of these numerous sources of the Governor-General’s data, the Statistical Yearbook of “the Government-General of Korea” has been most extensively used by researchers. Each department in the Japanese administrative structure produced statistical data and, in the case of 1944, the Governor-General’s Secretariat had produced the most statistical data out of all central departments of “the Government-General of Korea”. In the Governor-General’s Secretariat, the investigation division, which was the competent authority for statistics, produced 90% of its statistics. Out of the statistical data, the publication rate was about 55.9%, and 44.1% of the data was confidential. Therefore, those containing general information, including the Statistical Yearbook of “the Government-General of Korea”, were officially published by each department. However, what the people of Chosun need not or should not know classified confidential and used internally. Its high ratio, however, is considered as one of the distinct features.