Wada Ichiro came to Korea, and led land survey project, serving as the head of the judging panel of debated land and assistant administrator of high land survey committee, ets. He, based on the project experience and the examination of documents, wrote Survey Report of Joseon’s Land and Land Tax System(1920), by which he got the degree of Doctor of Laws from Tokyo University in 1923. He summed up Korea’s land system as communism system→ public land system→the confused time of public land and private land: That is, the private land of ownership was officially recognized as people’s land, though land system was state-ownership. Land was classified as public land, private land, and ownerless large area. He classified land rights as the state ownership, the rights of tax collection by land owners, and the rights of cultivation by tenants. People’s land was officially recognized, as the rights of tax collection by land owners secured the state ownership. The rights of cultivation were regarded as subject to ownership, and both of them recognized as lease relation.
He thought the disputes over state land had occurred mainly in the process of cultivating ownerless large area. Cleared lands were composed of rights for planning and clearing. The right for clearing was assured trading and inheritance as tenant land rights with the characteristic of real right. The strength of tenant land rights were different in lands. The tax collection of state and land transaction were achieved with acknowledgment of the relation of rights like this. Then, disputes occurred mainly around the level of tax amount.
However, things changed as the Japanese Empire investigated lands, based on the exclusive ownership of Japanes civil laws. Especially, since it was not evident whether Jeolsusayeoji(折受賜與地) within Yeokdunto was muto(無土) or yuto(有土), it wasn’t easy to distinguish between state-owned lands and people’s lands. He had to distinguish between state-owned lands and people’s lands in terms of exclusive ownership through setting one standard among the various tax amounts. Ownership disputes were frequent here. He found the casue of the dispute in the Korean disordered system. However, the disputes stemmed from the fact that the Japanese imperialists and Wada conducted land survey in the same way as above to reconstitute the Korean land system with exclusive ownership. Moreover, the Japanese government did not recognize the custom rights stemming from the right of clearing, but established exclusive ownership around ownership based on rights for planning. The state-owned areas included not only Yeokdunto but also land of public character such as even land of military service.