Movement to Improve Rural Areas (地方改良運動)
Movement to Improve Rural Areas was government-regulated movement which aimed to improve and reconstruct regional societies, cities, towns and villages which had been devastated after the Russo-Japanese War. With the publication of Boshin Shosho under the Second Katsura Cabinet, the implementation of the movement was led by the pre-war Ministry of Home Affairs.
Although Japan gained the status as a major power through the Russo-Japanese War, tax increases as part of the war-time fiscal policy left local finances in a state of near collapse, and rural areas became seriously ruined and devastated. The Boshin Shosho published on October 13, 1908 tried to restore the finances of rural regions, especially cities, towns and villages, reestablish fiscal basis, educate the people and at the same time, enlighten the public.