In October 1955, as promised, Congress dispatched a Special Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee chaired by Illinois Democrat Charles Melvin Price to investigate conditions in Okinawa. The group flew into Kadena from Korea on 23^rd October to hold hearings at the USCAR offices in Naha and conduct field trips to base areas[1] before flying to Hong Kong. Given the shortness of the visit only limited oral testimony could be accepted. Those invited included Higa Shuhei, Senaga Hiroshi, Kuwae Choko, GRI Legal Affairs Bureau Chief Makiya Saneo, Ryukyu Rippoin Land Committee Chairman Oyama Chojo, Ryukyu Rippoin Speaker Ohama, and Shi-cho-son Mayor's Association Land Board Chairman Higa Shusei.[2] All others had to submit written evidence. On the first day, 24^th October, Higa Shuhei raised the issue of public forests that fell within military-occupied land and the problem of people being able to fell timber and have continued access. Whereas Higa's testimony reflected the practical and economic needs of local people to access forests, however, O. C. Fisher, a Texas Democrat, insisted on elevating the "freedom" issue to a global level, arguing that it was precisely because the US was protecting freedom in its opposition to Communism that bases were required in Okinawa.[3] It was not an auspicious start.[4] On 25^th October, Kuwae and Oyama testified. Kuwae focused on the lack of equitableness in the OED's rent payment-compensation system by pointing to large disparities in money received on lands in the Oyama district of Ginowan, and arguing vehemently against the lump-sum payment.[5] Oyama pointed out that the US occupied 12.7% of Okinawa's land, dispossessing 50,000 families (displacing 250,000 people), often with the use of force as at Isahama, in the process, and paying them paltry compensation. The USG must, he argued, renounce the idea of further land seizures.[6]

Mayor Okuma Seitoku[7] supplied the Special Subcommittee with a four-page letter outlining Kin's problems. The requisition of land for the live-fire and manoeuvre area began in May of 1945, the letter states, with the total land area under US control reaching 6,127,016-tsubo.[8] This constituted almost 55% of Kin's land.[9] Okuma's first concern was the issue of forests. The US had taken two-thirds of all Kin's forests within the live-fire and manoeuvre area. US Army and Navy bombardment had already obliterated or burned down 267,300-tsubo of forestland (6% of the total). Such violent deforestation led in some cases to riverbanks bursting in heavy rains, flooding fields, and leading to crop damage or ruin. The forest was also vital to Kin's economy. Many families who were dependent on the sale of timber and firewood prior to W.W.II were now prohibited from entering much forest land, as were those who needed firewood, zebra grass, bamboo, compost, or logs for home use. In terms of cash losses the figures were compelling. In the prewar period, and on average, Kin gathered 300,000 bundles of firewood annually at a total value of 1.2 million-yen, compared with 62,000 bundles valued at 248,000-yen in 1953. This constituted an 80% loss.[10] Another issue was the loss of cultivatable land. Almost 62% of arable land in the Kin district of Kin fell inside the manoeuvre area, limiting agricultural activities. Some farmers got tacit permission from the US military to continue working the land, but others had to eke out a living as best they could. Indeed, a big issue within Kin was the inequity of seizures, with some people able to claim military rentals and profit from the land while others lost land with no compensation or, at best, a paltry amount. Okuma also drew attention to the loss of a vital water resource. A reservoir had been built to serve Kin in 1933, at the then princely sum of 120,000-yen. That this reservoir now fell in the manoeuvre area was not in itself problematic. Unfortunately, military training has resulted in damage, with 3,500 villagers now suffering from "want of water."[11] The USG would have to make provisions for the civilian community if it intended to continue such training in proximity to the reservoir.[12]

The main findings of the Special Subcommittee, commonly called the puraisu kankoku, or 'Price Recommendations,'[13] were made public on 9^th June 1956.[14] Given the sense of hope that the USG would take a sympathetic approach and the fact that the yongensoku had come to so embody Okinawa's demands, disappointment followed by anger describes the local reaction. It would be difficult to count the rallies that took place islandwide in the wake of the announcement, making the Price Recommendations among the most reviled policies of the USG in Okinawa in the occupation period. At the same time, and because of this controversy, the report is arguably one of the least read documents related to Okinawa. From the local perspective, that it upheld lump-sum payment and the acquisition of new land for the Marines, albeit with a caveat that it be kept "to an absolute minimum,"[15] was enough for most to venomously denounce the Price Report. Higa Shuhei sent a telegram to President Eisenhower and other USG departments urging reconsideration of the lump-sum and fresh acquisitions.[16] The Ryukyu Rippoin passed a resolution in an emergency session, sending a telegram requesting assistance to the Prime Minister's Office (Sorifu) and the Foreign Affairs Ministry (Gaimusho) of the GOJ.[17] In response, the mainland Jiyu Minshuto, or Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), recommended establishment of a non-governmental relief organisation.[18] On 20^th June, mass rallies (jumin taikai) were held in 56 shi-cho-son with 200,000 participants.[19] In Kin, 2,000 people gathered at the elementary school to hear Asato Tsumichiyo of the Okinawa Shakai Taishuto, or Socialist Masses Party, defend the yongensoku.[20] Understandably, amid the chaos, the more positive aspects of the Price Report went largely unnoticed, including a 200-300% boost in rent payments, the OED allowed both greater flexibility in overall land rental appraisals[21] and in taking account of agricultural productivity in assessing rents on arable land. The report also showed that Higa Shuhei and Kin Mayor Okuma Seitoku's views had not been ignored. It pushed for the release of unused arable land within base confines, the extension of tacit farming of on-base arable lands where efficacious, and that USCAR permit maximum use of forests by villagers on a sympathetic and cooperative basis.[22]

Most revealing, however, was the Special Subcommittee's overall critique of the Okinawan view that a landowner should receive close to 80% of the gross estimated income of the land in rental payments. The pertinent section was more prophetic than Mr. Price or the Subcommittee could possibly have imagined, forewarning of a flawed payment system that would materialise and persist after reversion to Japan in 1972. As such, it warrants quoting at some length. 

"It is…difficult…to understand…how such an extreme request could be made. In effect, the request means that if an Okinawan owned a piece of…land which is now needed…our Government should support that individual, and possibly his heirs, in the same manner and fashion as though he were spending long and arduous hours of work and accepting the hazards of nature throughout each year. This proposal transcends any socialistic theory of compensation with which the members of this subcommittee are familiar. Nothing could be more degenerating to the landowner or less fair to the…taxpayer. It would create a group of what might be called "landed gentry" inasmuch as the dispossessed landowner would…receive, without the expenditure of any labour, the equivalent of his total land productivity. It is not inconceivable either that adoption of this plan would create an inflationary spiral to the detriment of the Ryukyu people and particularly those who would not be receiving this large annual rental."[23]

Although the Price Report furore dominated local newspapers the yongensoku movement was losing steam fast. And while not triumphant on all counts, hiked rents, recognition that land values fluctuate, commitment to an expansion of cultivatable land, villager access to forests, and support for tacit farming, led many landowners to believe that this was as far as the USG would go. This view was mirrored in political circles. At the 3^rd Legislative elections on 11^th March 1956, the right-leaning Ryukyu Minshuto (Ryukyu Democratic Party), headed by USCAR-appointee Higa Shuhei, won its first clear majority.[24] While there had been cross-party unity on the yongensoku up to that point, however, at a Ryukyu Minshuto rally on 16^th July 1956, Higa shifted stance. His new position was that while respecting the diverse opinions on military issues in his Minshuto and amongst the Okinawan people, as Chief Executive he had to situate himself between the various factions.[25] With Higa's sudden death on 25^th October, at the age of 55, USCAR named Naha Mayor Toma Jugo as his successor. While Toma was independent, his appointment was probably not divorced from his statement in an interview with Peter Point of Columbia Broadcasting in July that "if the USG did not take permanent ownership of land; if it approved appropriate compensation, and if the policy did not produce damaging economic fluctuations in Okinawa, there would likely be no opposition to lump-sum payments."[26] With fresh USCAR land seizures on the horizon many landowners accepted the inevitability of loss but would logically try to obtain as much as possible in return. The economic dimension was driven home by an 'off-limits' directive issued to all US military personnel on 7^th August. Ostensibly to prevent civil-military friction escalating in the wake of the Price Report US troops on Okinawa were prohibited from patronising off-base facilities in a large central island zone stretching from Yaka in Kin to Nakadomari furthest south, cutting off the flow of dollars to bars, restaurants, and retailers in one fell swoop.[27] It was a crude weapon, but one that succeeded in making the point that while Okinawa may not like US bases, the economy could not do without them. Not quite America's finest hour.