Agrarian reform as unfinished business

AL OF ARCHICT of the clasic reform i Jepun in 1746-48, Wolf Ladeyrsky achieved renen an expert on agricalrore in Auin. He made signiant coutions the equally conful land reform in porewar Tan and encouraged and provided gulance grarian efforts in Indis beginning in the early 1950 Wolf Laljinsky was a prime mover in the less well-known land refium seccesses of South Vietna in the late 1950s 1 helped acipient agrarian reforis stirrings in Nepal, Indonesir, and the Philippines in the early 1960s. He spent most of his le ten years fighting. against enormous odds, to cirect referm efforts in India into more practical and constru rive channels, trying at the same time to generate the political will without which meaningful agrariar teform cannot be accomplished.

To the governments and development institutions for which he worked furing his highly prod. crive career, Ladejinsky brought a keen appreciation of the welfare and dignity of the olividual. He concerrs were the concerns of the sub parginal farmer, the tea int, the sharecropper, and the ladiess laborer. His warn yet objective writing greatly affected the present understanding of the crucial role of agriculture in economic development of the essential role of the small frmer in this process, and of the need for technological progress to be cotaplemented by renurial reform and a greater ineesure of social justice in the countrysic. No Westerner struggled harder to improve the peasant con dition in Asia than did Wolf Ladejinsky, who early on became a legend in his own time,

This collection comprises a generous selection of Ladej nsky's b st and most significant writings and spans his entire professional career, representing every Asian country in which he orked. Most of the papers are previously unpub lished and most have never before been available bey the agencies and ministrie He served. His works are a rich lode to be mined by all who are interested in the why and how of success and failur: in e cnomic cevelopment. This collection brags cogency and illumination to the human and institutional realities that chalenge us with the unanished business (agrarian reform.

Louis J. Walinsky edited these papers and has himself had a long career in national unic planning, programming, and policymaking. Since the mid 1960s he concentrated on public investment, industrial sector policy, and rural dev opment for the World Bank. Mr. Walinsky is author of Economic Development in Burma: 1951-1960 and The Planning and Execution of Economicvelopment.