Chapter 41

Chapter 4121,931 wordsPublic domain

THE PROBLEMS OF JAPAN

Concerning these things, they are not to be delivered but from much intercourse and discussion.--PLATO

Emigrants do not willingly seek a climate worse than their own. This is one of the reasons why the development of Hokkaido has not been swifter. The island is not much farther from the mainland than Shikoku, but it is near, not the richest and warmest part of the mainland, but the poorest and the coldest. If we imagine another Scotland lying off Cape Wrath, at the distance of Ireland from Scotland, and with a climate corresponding to the northerly situation of such a supposititious island, we may realise how remoteness and climatic limitations have hindered the progress of Hokkaido.

"Our mode of living is not suited to the colder climate," an agricultural professor said to me. "Poor emigrants do not have money enough to build houses with stoves and properly fitting windows."

To what extent the modified farming methods rendered necessary by the Hokkaido climate have had a deterring effect on would-be settlers I do not know. It has never been demonstrated that the Japanese farmer prefers arduous amphibious labour to the dry-land farming in which most of the world's land workers are engaged; but the cultivation of paddy or a large proportion of paddy is his traditional way of farming. Rice culture also means to him the production of the crop which, when weather conditions favour, is more profitable than any other. In Hokkaido, as we have seen, the remunerative kind of agriculture is mixed farming, and, in a large part of the country, rice cannot be grown at all. Against objections to Hokkaido on the ground of the strangeness of its farming may probably be set, however, the cheapness of land there.

An undoubted hindrance to the colonisation of Hokkaido has been land scandals and land grabbing. Many of what the late Lord Salisbury called the "best bits" are in the hands of big proprietors or proprietaries. Some large landowners no doubt show public spirit. But their class has contrived to keep farmers from getting access to a great deal of land which, because of its quality and nearness to practicable roads and the railway, might have been worked to the best advantage. In various parts of Japan I heard complaints. "The land system in Hokkaido," one man in Aichi said to me, "is so queer that land cannot be got by the families needing it, I mean good land." Again in Shikoku I was assured that "the most desirable parts of the Hokkaido are in the hands of capitalists who welcome tenants only." In more than one part of northern Japan I was told of emigrants to Hokkaido who had "returned dissatisfied." A charge made against the large holder of Hokkaido land is that he is an absentee and a city man who lacks the knowledge and the inclination to devote the necessary capital to the development of his estate. Of late the rise in the value of timber has induced not a few proprietors to interest themselves much more in stripping their land of trees than in developing its agricultural possibilities.

The development of Hokkaido may also have been slowed down to some extent by a lower level of education among the people than is customary on most of the mainland, by a rougher and less skilful farming than is common in Old Japan and by the existence of a residuum which would rather "deal" or "let George do it" or cheat the Ainu than follow the laborious colonial life. But no cause has been more potent than a lack of money in the public treasury. I was told that for five years in succession Tokyo had cut down the Hokkaido budget. Necessary public work and schemes for development have been repeatedly stopped. At a time when the interests of Hokkaido demand more farmers and there is a general complaint of lack of labour, at a time when there are persistent pleas for oversea expansion, there are in Japan twice or thrice as many people applying for land in the island as are granted entry. The blunt truth is that the State has felt itself compelled to spend so much on military and naval expansion that the claims of Hokkaido for the wherewithal for better roads, more railway line and better credit have often been put aside.[273]

One thing is certain, that slow progress in the development of Hokkaido gives an opening to the critics of Japan who doubt whether her need for expansion beyond her own territory is as pressing as is represented by some writers. However this may be, Hokkaido is stated to take only a tenth of the overplus of the population of Old Japan. The number of emigrants in 1913 was no larger than the number in 1906. A usual view in Hokkaido is that the island can hold twice as many people as it now contains. "When 3,625,000 acres are brought into cultivation," says an official publication, "Hokkaido will be able easily to maintain 5,000,000 inhabitants on her own products."

Very much of what has been achieved in Hokkaido has been done under the stimulating influence of the Agricultural College, now the University. The northern climate seems to be conducive to mental vigour in both professors and students. If in moving about Hokkaido one is conscious of a somewhat materialistic view of progress it may be remembered that an absorption in "getting on" is characteristic of colonists and their advisers everywhere. It is not high ideals of life but bitter experience of inability to make a living on the mainland which has brought immigrants to Hokkaido. As time goes on, the rural and industrial development may have a less sordid look.[274] At present the visitor who lacks time to penetrate into the fastnesses of Hokkaido and enjoy its natural beauties brings away the unhappy impression which is presented by a view of man's first assault on the wild.

But he must still be glad to have seen this distant part of Japan. He finds there something stimulating and free which seems to be absent from the older mainland. It is possible that when Hokkaido shall have worked out her destiny she may not be without her influence on the development of Old Japan. Those of the settlers who are reasonably well equipped in character, wits and health are not only making the living which they failed to obtain at home; they are testing some national canons of agriculture. Face to face with strangers and with new conditions, these immigrants are also examining some ideals of social life and conduct which, old though they are, may not be perfectly adapted to the new age into which Japan has forced herself. One evening in Hokkaido I saw a lone cottage in the hills. At its door was the tall pole on which at the _Bon_ season the lantern is hung to guide the hovering soul of that member of the family who has died during the year. The settler's lantern, steadily burning high above his hut, was an emblem of faith that man does not live by gain alone which the hardest toil cannot quench. In whatever guise it may express itself, it is the best hope for Hokkaido and Japan.

During my stay in the island I had an opportunity of meeting some of the most influential men from the Governor downwards; also several interesting visitors from the mainland. We often found ourselves getting away from Hokkaido's problems to the general problems of rural life.

Of the good influences at work in the village, the first I was once more assured, was "popular education and school ethics, a real influence and blessing." The second was "the disciplinary training of the army for regularity of conduct." ("The influence of officers on their young soldiers is good, and they give them or provide them with lectures on agricultural subjects and allow them time to go in companies to experimental farms.")

Someone spoke of "the influence of the religion of the past." "The religion of the past!" exclaimed an elderly man; "in half a dozen prefectures it may be that religion is a rural force, but elsewhere in the Empire there is a lack of any moral code that takes deep root in the head. After all Christians are more trustworthy than people drinking and playing with geisha."

On the other hand a prominent Christian said: "There is a weakness in our Christians, generally speaking. There is an absence of a sound faith. The native churches have no strong influence on rural life. There is often a certain priggishness and pride in things foreign in saying, 'I am a Christian.'"

Another man spoke in this wise: "I have been impressed by some of the following of Uchimura. They seem ardent and real. But I have also been attracted by strength of character in members of various sects of Christians. The theology and phraseology of these men may be curious, may be in many respects behind the times, but their religion had a beautiful aspect.[275] Many of our people have got something of Christian ethics, but are no church-goers. Some Japanese try to combine Christian principles with old Japanese virtues; others with some soul supporting Buddhistic ideas. We must have Christianity if only to supply a great lack in our conception of personality. People who have accepted Christianity show so much more personality and so much more interest in social reform."

When we returned to agricultural conditions, one who spoke with authority said: "In Old Japan the agricultural system has become dwarfed. The individual cannot raise the standard of living nor can crops be substantially increased. The whole economy is too small.[276] The people are too close on the ground. They must spread out to north-eastern Japan, to Hokkaido, Korea and Manchuria. The population of Korea could be greatly increased. There is an immense opening in Manchuria, which is four or five times the area of the Japanese Empire and sparsely populated. There is also Mongolia."[277]

"But in Korea," one who had been there said, "there are the Koreans, an able if backward people, to be considered--they will increase with the spread of our sanitary methods among a population which was reduced by a primitive hygiene and by maladministration. And as to our people going to the mainland of Asia, we do not really like to go where rice is not the agricultural staple, and we prefer a warm country. In Formosa, where it is warm, we are faced by the competition of the Chinese at a lower standard of life.[278] The perfect places for Japanese are California, New Zealand and Australia, but the Americans and Australasians won't have us. I do not complain; we do not allow Chinese labour in Japan. But we think that we might have had Australasia or New Zealand if we had not been secluded from the world by the Tokugawa régime, and so allowed you British to get there first. It is not strange that some of our dreamers should grudge you your place there, should cherish ideas of expansion by walking in your footsteps. But it is wisdom to realise that we cannot do to-day what might have been done centuries ago or make history repeat itself for our benefit. It is wiser to seek to reduce the amount of misapprehension, prejudice and--shall I say?--national feeling in Japan and America and Australasia, and try to procure ultimate accommodation for us all in that way. But not too much reduce, perhaps, for, in the present posture of the world, nationalist feeling and--we do not want premature inter-marriage--racial feeling are still valuable to mankind."

A speaker who followed said: "Remember to our credit how our area under cultivation in Old Japan continually increases.[279] Bear in mind, too, what good use we have made of the land we have been able to get under cultivation--so many thousand more _chō_ of crops than there are _chō_ of land, due, of course, to the two or three crops a year system in many areas."[280]

"As for the situation the emigrants[281] leave behind them in Old Japan," resumed the first speaker, "the experiment should be tried of putting ten or so of tiny holdings[282] under one control, and an attempt should be made to see what improved implements and further co-operation[283] can effect. I suppose the thing most needed on the mainland is working capital at a moderate rate. Think of 900 million yen of farmers' debt, much of it at 12 per cent. and some of it at 20 per cent.! I do not reckon the millions of prefectural, county and village debt. Of what value is it to raise the rice crop to 3 or 4 _koku_ per _tan_ (60 or 80 bushels per acre)[284] if the moneylender profits most? The farmers of Old Japan are undoubtedly losing land to the moneyed people.[285] Every year the number of farmers owning their own land decreases[286] and the number of tenants increases and more country people go to the towns.[287] And, as an official statement says, 'the physical condition of the army conscripts from the rural districts is always superior to that of the conscripts of the urban districts.'"

Some Western criticism of Japanese agriculture cannot be overlooked.[288] Criticism is naturally invited by (1) Japanese devotion to what is in Western eyes an exotic crop--but owing to exceptional water supplies, favourable climatic conditions and acquired skill in cultivation, the best crop for all but the extreme north-east of Japan;[289] (2) the small portions in which much of that crop is grown--of necessity; (3) the primitive implements--not ill-adapted, however, to a primitive cultural system; (4) the non-utilisation of animal or mechanical power in a large part of the country--due as much to physical conditions as to lack of cheap capital; (5) what is spoken of as "the never-ending toil"--against which must be set the figures I have quoted showing the number of farmers who do not work on an average more than 4 or 5 days a week; and (6) the moderate total production compared with the number of producers--which must be considered in reference to the object of Japanese agriculture and in relation to a lower standard of living. Japanese agriculture, as we have seen, has shortcomings, many of which are being steadily met; but with all its shortcomings it does succeed in providing, for a vast population per square _ri_, subsistence in conditions which are in the main endurable and might be easily made better.

Paddy adjustment has clearly shown that paddies above the average size are more economically worked than small ones, but these adjusted paddies are on the plains and a large proportion of Japanese paddies have had to be made on uneven or hilly ground where physical conditions make it impossible for these rice fields to be anything else than small and irregular. Japanese agriculture is what it is and must largely remain what it is because Japan is geologically and climatically what it is, and because the social development of a large part of Japan is what it is. Comparisons with rice culture in Texas, California and Italy are usually made in forgetfulness of the fact that the rice fields there are generally on level fertile areas, in America sometimes on virgin soil. In Japan rice culture extends to poor unfavourable land because the people want to have rice everywhere.[290] The Japanese have cultivated the same paddies for centuries, Some American rice land is thrown out of cultivation after a few years. In fertile localities the Japanese get twice the average crop. It must also be remembered that Japanese paddies often produce two crops, a crop of rice and an after-crop. Japanese technicians are well acquainted with Texan, Californian and Italian rice culture, and Japanese have tried rice production both in California and Texas.

"They talk of Texan and Italian rice culture," said one man who had been abroad on a mission of agricultural investigation, "but I found the comparative cost of rice production greater in Texas than in Japan. Some Japanese farmers who went to Texas were overcome by weeds because of dear labour. In Italian paddies, also, I saw many more weeds than in ours. It is rational, of course, for Americans and Italians to use improved machinery, for they have expensive labour conditions, but we have cheap labour. The Texans have large paddies because their land is cheap, but ours is dear. In these big paddies the water cannot be kept at two or three inches, as with us. It is necessarily five inches or so, too deep, and the soil temperature falls and they lose on the crops what they gain by the use of machinery. Further, it must be remembered that we are not producing our rice for export. It is a special kind for ourselves, which we like;[291] but foreigners would just as soon have any other sort. We have no call, therefore, to develop our rice culture in the same degree as our sericulture, which rests mainly on a valuable oversea trade."

"On this general question of improvement of implements and methods," said another member of our company, "we must use machinery and combine farming management when industrial progress drives us to it; but why try to do it before we are compelled? Concerning horses, the difficulty which some farmers have in using them is the difficulty of feeding them economically. Concerning cereals, our consumption is not less than that of Germany, but Germany imports more than twice the cereals we do, so there would seem to be something to be said for our system."

"Some revolutionising of Japanese farming is necessary, in combined threshing, for instance," the expert who had opened our discussion said. "This combined threshing is now seen in several districts, and combined threshing will be extended. But there is the objection to the threshing machine that it breaks the straw and thus spoils it for farmers' secondary industries. It should not be impossible to invent some way of avoiding this, but the threshing machine is also too heavy for narrow roads between paddies. It is difficult to deliver the crops to the machine in sufficient bulk. Necessity may show us ways, but small threshing machines are not so economical. Of course we must have much more co-operative buying of rural requirements, and certainly there is room in some places for the Western scythe made smaller, but our people, as you have seen, are dexterous with their extremely sharp, short sickle, and fodder is often cut on rather difficult slopes, from which it is not easy to descend loaded, with a scythe. Some foreigners who speak so positively about machinery for paddies, and for, I suppose, the sloping uplands to which our arable farming is relegated, do not really grasp the physical conditions of our agriculture. And they are always forgetting the warm dankness of our climate. They forget, too, that implements for hand use are more efficient than machinery, and, if labour be cheap, more economical. They forget above all that we are of necessity a small-holdings country."

Is it such a bad thing to be a small-holdings country? Does the rural life of countries which are pre-eminently small-holding, like Denmark and Holland, compare so unfavourably with that of England? I wonder how much money has been sunk--most of it lost--during the past quarter of a century in attempts to increase small holdings in England.

"Because we have much remote, wild, uncultivated land," the speaker I have interrupted continued, "that is not to say that most of it, often at a high elevation, or sloping, or poor in quality, as well as remote, can be profitably broken up for paddies. Much of this land can be and ought to be utilised in one fashion or another, but we have found some experiments in this direction unprofitable, even when rice was dear. But it may be said, Why break up this wild land into paddies? Why not have nice grassy slopes for cattle as in Switzerland? But our experts have tried in vain to get grass established. The heavy rains and the heat enable the bamboo grass to overcome the new fodder grass we have sown. The first year the fodder grass grows nicely, but the second year the bamboo grass conquers. In Hokkaido and Saghalien we are conquering bamboo grass with fodder grass. The advice to go in largely for fruit ignores the fact of our steamy damp climate, which encourages sappy growth, disease and those insects which are so numerous in Japan. We cannot do much more than grow for home consumption."

"The advice to draw the cultivation of our small farms under group control has not always been profitable when followed by landlords," one who had not yet spoken remarked. "They have not always made more when they farmed themselves than when they let their land. All the world over, land workers do better for themselves than for others. Proposals further to capitalise farming which, with a rural exodus already going on, would have the effect of driving people off the land who are employed on it healthily and with benefit to the social organism, do not seem to offer a more satisfactory situation for Japan. No country has shown itself less afraid of business combination than Japan, and the world owes as much to industry as to agriculture, and I am not in the least afraid of machinery and capital; but production is not our final aim. Production is to serve us; we are not to serve production. If people can live in self-respect on the land they are better off in many ways than if they are engaged in industry in some of its modern developments."

"The world is also better off," my interpreter in his notes records me as saying when I was pressed to state my opinion. "The day will come when the uselessness and waste of a certain proportion of industry and commerce will be realised, when the saving power of an export and import trade in unnecessary things will be questioned and when the cultivator of the ground will be restored to the place in social precedence he held in Old Japan. With him will rank the other real producers in art, literature and science, industry and commerce. The industrialisation of the West and its capitalistic system have not been so perfectly successful in their social results for it to be certain that Japan should be hurried more quickly in the industrial and capitalistic direction than she is travelling already.[292] If she takes time over her development, the final results may be better for her and for the world. I have not noticed that Japanese rural people who have departed from a simple way of life through the acquirement of many farms or the receipt of factory dividends have become worthier. On the question of the alleged over-population of rural Japan, one Japanese investigator has suggested to me that as many as 20 per cent. could be advantageously spared from agricultural labour. But he was not himself an agriculturist or an ex-agriculturist. He was not even a rural resident. Further, he conceived his 20 per cent. as entering rural rather than urban industry.

"A great deal of afforestation and better use of a large proportion of forest land, much more co-operation for borrowing and buying, improved implements where improved implements can be profitably used, animal and mechanical power where they can be employed to advantage, paddy adjustment to the limit of the practical, more intelligent manuring, a wider use of better seeds,[293] the bringing in of new land which is capable of yielding a profit when an adequate expenditure is made upon it, a mental and physical education which is ever improving--all these, joined to better ways of life generally, are obvious avenues of improvement, in Northern Japan particularly, not to speak of Hokkaido.[294] But it is not so much the details of improvement that seem urgently to need attention. It is the general principles. I have been assured again and again by prefectural governors and agricultural experts--and in talking to a foreigner they would hardly be likely to exaggerate--that considered plans for the prevention of disastrous floods, for the breaking up of new land, for the provision of loans and for the development of public intelligence and well-being were hindered in their areas by lack of money alone. The degree to which rural improvements, with which the best interests of Japan now and in the future are bound up, may have been arrested and may still be arrested by erroneous conceptions of national progress and of the ends to which public energy and public funds[295] may be wisely devoted is a matter for patriotic reflection.[296] No impression I have gained in Japan is sharper than an impression of ardent patriotism. For good or ill, patriotism is the outstanding Japanese virtue. What some patriots here and elsewhere do not seem to realise, however, is what a quiet, homely, everyday thing true patriotism is. The Japanese, with so many talents, so many natural and fortuitous advantages, and with opportunities, such as no other nation has enjoyed, of being able to profit by the social, economic and international experience of States that have bought their experience dearly and have much to rue, cannot fairly expect to be lightly judged by contemporaries or by history. If the course taken by Japan towards national greatness is at times uncertain, it is due no doubt to the fascinations of many will-o'-the-wisps. There can be one basis only for the enlightened judgment of the world on the Japanese people: the degree to which they are able to distinguish the true from the mediocre and the resolution and common-sense with which they take their own way."

"Our rural problems," a sober-minded young professor added, after one of those pauses which are usual in conversations in Japan, "is not a technical problem, not even an economic problem. It is, as you have realised, a sociological problem. It is bound up with the mental attitude of our people--and with the mental attitude of the whole world."

FOOTNOTES:

[273] A high authority assured me that 100 million yen (pre-War figures) could be laid out to advantage. A Japanese economist's comment was: "Why not touch on the extraordinary proportion of land owned by the Imperial Household and also by the State for military purposes?"

[274] In driving through what seemed to be one of the best streets in Sapporo, I noticed that some exceptionally large houses were the dwellings of the registered prostitutes. Each house had a large ground-floor window. Before it was a barrier about a yard high which cleared the ground, leaving a space of about another yard. Such of the public as were interested were able, therefore, to peer in without being identified from the street, for only their legs and feet were visible. In Tokyo and elsewhere this exhibition of girls to the public has ceased. The place of the girls is taken by enlarged framed photographs. I found on enquiry that the Sapporo houses are so well organised as to have their proprietors' association. At a little town like Obihiro an edifice was pointed out to me containing fifty or more women.

[275] The classification is 101,671 Protestants, 75,983 Roman Catholics and 36,265 Greek Church.

[276] "'Spade farming' is an apt designation of the system of farming or rather of cultivation, for little is done in the way of raising stock."--PROFESSOR YOKOI.

[277] See Appendix XXX.

[278] But surely the basic reason against a large emigration of farmers and artisans to Formosa, or to Manchuria, Mongolia or Korea, with the intention of working at their callings, is that the standard of living is lower there? The chief attraction of America and Australasia is that the standard of living is higher. The question of over-population must be considered in relation to the facts in Appendices XXV, XXX and LXXX, and on page 331. It is not established that the Japanese have now, or are likely to have in the near future, a pressing need to emigrate.

[279] See Appendix LXXII.

[280] See Appendix LXXIII.

[281] See Appendix LXXIV.

[282] Between 1909 and 1918 the average area of holdings rose from 1.03 to 1.09 _chō_ or from 2.52 to 2.67 acres or 1.02 to 1.08 hectares.

[283] There were in 1919 some 13,000 co-operative societies of all sorts. The number increases about 500 a year.

[284] For rise in production per _tan_, see Appendix LXXV.

[285] See Appendix LXXVI.

[286] See Appendix LXXVII.

[287] See Appendix LXXVIII.

[288] See, for example, C.V. Sale in the _Transactions of the Society of Arts_, 1907, and J.M. McCaleb in the _Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan_, 1916.

[289] For the question, is rice the right crop for Japan? See Appendix LXXIX.

[290] Dr. Yahagi in an address delivered in Italy pointed out to his audience that Japan had 15 times as large an area under rice as Italy and that, while the Italian harvest ranged between 42 and 83 hectolitres per hectare, the Japanese ranged between 55 and 130. The area under rice in the United States in 1920 was 1,337,000 acres and the yield 53,710,000 bushels. The area under rice has steadily increased since 1913, when it was only 25,744,000 bushels.

[291] A well-informed Japanese who read this Chapter doubted the ability of his countrymen to distinguish between native and Korean, Californian or Texan rice. Saigon is another matter. See Appendix XXIV.

[292] "Some of our statesmen," notes a Japanese reader of this Chapter, "are carried away by ideas of an industrial El Dorado." Such men have no understanding of the relation of rural Japan to the national welfare. They are as blind guides as the Japanese who, caught by the glamour of the West, threw away the artistic treasures of their forefathers and pulled down beautiful temples and _yashiki_. Japan has much to gain from a wise and just industrial system, but not a little of the present industrialisation is an exploitation of cheap labour, a destruction of craftsmanship and social obligation, and an attempt to cut out the foreigner by the production of rubbish.

[293] The chairman of Rothamsted declares as I write that the standard of English farming could be raised 50 per cent. Hall and Voelcker have estimated that 20 million tons of farmyard manure made in the United Kingdom is wasted through avoidable causes.

[294] For a discussion of the question of inner colonisation versus foreign expansion, see Appendix LXXX.

[295] For figures bearing on the relative importance of agriculture, commerce and industry, see Appendix LXXXI. For armaments, see Appendix XXXIII.

[296] There are many Britons who now reflect that millions which have gone into Mesopotamia might have been better spent by the Ministries of Health and Education.

The blessing of her sun-warmed days; Her sea-spun cloak of wet; Her pointing valleys, veiled in haze, Where field and wood have met; When we have gone our differing ways These we shall not forget. L.T., in _The New East_.

APPENDICES

The sermon was bad enough, but the appendix was abominable.--MR. BOWDLER.

THE INCOME OF A MINISTER OF STATE FROM THE LAND[I]. The speaker began by inheriting 3 _chō_ (7-1/2 acres). He farmed a _chō_ of rice field and about a third of a _chō_ of dry land. With rent from the part he let, with gains from the part he farmed and with interest on 2,000 yen spare capital, he had at end of the year a balance of 370 yen. With the money gained from year to year more and more land was bought. At the time of his talk with me he owned 8 _chō_. His net income, after deducting cost of living, was 1,200 yen (including 500 yen from the land that was let). In the future, when he farmed 7 _chō_ (15-1/2 acres), he believed that his balance would be 4,500 yen, which is the salary of a Governor! Or was, until the rise in prices when Governors' salaries were raised about another 1,000 yen, with an additional allowance of from 600 to 400 yen in the case of some prefectures. See also Appendix III.

"GETA" [II]. The _geta_ is a flat piece of hard wood, about the length of the foot but a little wider, with two stumpy pieces fastened transversely below it. The foot maintains an uncertain and, in the case of a novice whose big toe has not been accustomed to separation from its fellows, a painful hold by means of a toe strap of thick rope or cotton. To persons unused from childhood to the special toe grip and scuffle of the _geta_, it seems odd to associate with this difficult clattering footgear the idea of "luxury." But no pains are spared by the _geta_ makers in choosing fine woods and pretty cords.

BUDGETS OF LARGE PROPERTY OWNERS [III]. Two landlords, A and B, kindly allowed me to look into their budgets:

A yen 80 _chō_ of rural land 320,000 20 _chō_ of rural land 60,000 20,000 _tsubo_ of city land 130,000 Negotiable instruments 150,000 Dwelling and furniture 150,000 _______ Total property 810,000 =======

EXPENDITURE OF PAST YEAR

yen House 2,100 Food and drink 1,350 Clothing 1,000 Social intercourse 1,500 Public benefit 800 Miscellaneous 1,000 Taxes 5,000 ______ 12,750 ======

owns 62 _chō_ 4 _tan_ and receives in rent 623 _koku_ 7 _to_. Members of family, 11; servants, 8.

EXPENDITURE OF PAST YEAR

yen House 519 Food and drink (18 sen each per day for members of family; 13 sen each for servants) 1,102 Fuel 156 Light 36 Clothing 770 Education (3 middle-school boys at 20 yen per month; 3 primary-school boys and girls at 2 yen) 312 Social intercourse 120 Amusements (journey, 100 yen; summer trip, 231; others, 50) 381 Miscellaneous (servants, 480 yen; medicine, 150; other things, 150) 780 Donations 300 Taxes 3,976 ______ 8,451 ======

THE "BENJO" [IV]. I never noticed a case in which earth was thrown into the domestic closet tub according to Dr. Poore's system. I have come across attempts to use deodorisers, but the application of a germicide is inhibited because of the injury which would be caused to the crops. Farmers are chary about removing night soil which has been treated even with a deodoriser. I ventured to suggest more than once that Japanese science should be equal to evolving a deodoriser to which the farmer, who in Japan seems to be so easily directed, could have no objection. The drawback to using Dr. Poore's system is that the added earth would greatly increase the weight of the substance to be removed. There would be the same objection to the use of _hibachi_ ash (charcoal ash), but there is not enough produced to have any sensible effect. The truth is that there is no lively interest in the question of getting rid of the stink for everyone has become accustomed to it. The odour from the _benjo_--the politer word is _habakari_--which is always indoors, though at the end of the _engawa_ (verandah), often penetrates the house. (_Engawa_ [edge or border] is the passage which faces to the open; _roka_ is a passage inside a house between two rooms or sometimes a bridgelike passage in the open, connecting two separate buildings or parts of a house.) Emptying day is particularly trying. This much must be said, however, that the farmers' tubs are washed, scrubbed and sunned after every journey and have close-fitting lids. And primitive though the _benjo_ is, it is scrupulously clean. Also, if it is always more or less smelly, it is contrived on sound hygienic principles. There is no seat requiring an unnatural position. The user squats over an opening in the floor about 2 ft. long by 6 ins. wide. This opening is encased by a simple porcelain fitting with a hood at the end facing the user. The top of the tub is some distance below the floor. In peasants' houses there is no porcelain fitting. Manure is so valuable in Japan that farmers whose land adjoins the road often build a _benjo_ for the use of passers-by. Although the traveller in Japan has much to endure from the unpleasant odour due to the thrifty utilisation of excreta, the Japanese deserve credit for the fact that their countryside is never fouled in the disgusting fashion which proves many of our rural folk to be behind the primitive standard of civilisation set up in Deuteronomy (chap, xxiii. 13). The Western rural sociologist is not inclined to criticise the sanitary methods of Japan. He is too conscious of the neglect in the West to study thoroughly the grave question of sewage disposal in relation to the needs of our crops and the cost of nitrogenous fertilisers. See also Appendix XX.

AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS [V]. In Mr. Yamasaki's school there was dormitory accommodation for 200 youths, some 40 lived in teachers' houses, another 15 were in lodgings, and 45 came daily from their parents' homes. Lads were admitted from 14 to 16 and the course was for 3 years. The students worked 30 hours weekly indoors and the rest of their time outside. Upper and lower grade agricultural schools number 280 with 23,000 students. In addition there are 7,908 agricultural continuation schools with more than 430,000 pupils. The ratio of illiteracy in Japan for men of conscription age (that is, excluding old people and young people), which had been over 5 per cent. up to 1911, was reported to be only 2 per cent. in 1917.

CRIME [VI]. In 1916 the chief offences in Japan were:

Dealt with at police station 445,502 Gambling and lotteries 81,649 Larceny 81,063 Fraud and usurpation 49,772 Assaults 19,022 Robbery 10,383 Arson 9,533 Accidental assaults 3,277 Obscenity 2,796 Wilful injury 2,032 Murder 1,886 Abortion 1,252 Abduction 907 Rioting 813 Official disgrace 481 Military and naval 387 Desertion 315 Forgery 307 Coining 206

PROSTITUTES [VII]. The chief of police was good enough to let me have a copy of the form to be filled up by girls desiring to enter the houses in the prefecture. It is under nine heads: 1. The reason for adopting the profession. 2. Age. 3. Permission of head of household. If permission is not forthcoming, reason why. 4. If a minor, proof of permission. 5. House at which the girl is going to "work." 6. Home address. 7. Former means of getting a living. 8. Whether prostitute before. If so, particulars. 9. Other details.

When I was in Japan there were reputed to be about 50,000 _joro_ (prostitutes), about half that number of geisha and about 35,000 "waitresses."

PHILANTHROPIC AGENCIES [VIII]. In 1917 the number of paupers, tramps and foundlings relieved by the State did not exceed 10,000. The number of institutions was 730 (of which 40 were run by foreigners), with the expenditure of about 5-1/2 million yen.

CHANGES IN RURAL STATUS [IX]. It seemed that during 47 years 18 tenants had become peasant proprietors, 14 peasant proprietors had become landowners (that is men who make their living by letting land rather than by working it), 8 tenants had stepped straightway into the position of landowners, 7 landowners had fallen to the grade of peasant proprietors and 7 more to that of tenants, while 114 householders had changed their callings or had gone to Hokkaido.

HOURS OF WORK PER DAY [X]. One of these villages showed that during January and February it worked 6 hours, during March and April 8 hours, from May to August 12-1/2 hours, during September and October 9-1/2 hours, and during November and December 9 hours. There was a further record of labour at night. In January and February it worked from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., during March and April and September and October from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. and in November and December from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. As in the period from May to August inclusive the day working hours were from 5 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., there then was no night labour.

DILIGENT PEOPLE AND OTHERS [XI]. The adults of the village were classified as follows: Diligent people, men 294, women 260; average workers, men 270, women 236; other people, men 242, women 191. One supposes that, in considering the women's activities, all that was estimated was the number of hours spent in agricultural work or in remunerative employment in the evening.

FARM AREAS AND DAYS WORKED IN THE YEAR [XII]. The information concerned three typical peasant proprietors, A, B and C, living in the same county. The areas of their land are given in _tan_:

|Where farming |Paddy |Dry |Homestead |Rented |Children |Parents | --------------------------------------------------------------------- A |In hills |6 |3 |1 | -- |3 |2 | B |On plain |6.6 |2.6 |.5 |2 paddy |3 |2 | C |Near town |6 |4 |1 | -- |3 |- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Next we are told the number of days that not only A, B and C but their wives and their parents worked and did not work during the year:

| |Domestic |National | |Remaining |Agriculture |Work |Holidays & |Illness |Days | | |Festivals | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- {A |254 | 28 |25 | 6 |52 Husbands {B |239 | 37 |25 | - |64 {C |231 | 49 |19 | 2 |64 | | | | | {A |239 | 54 | 7 | - |64 Wives {B |150 |128 |26 | - |64 {C |141 |174 | 9 | - |41 | | | | | {A |144 | 47 |85 |18 |72 Fathers {B |205 | 69 |40 | - |51 {C | - | - | - | - | - | | | | | {A | 15 |324 | 6 | - |20 Mothers {B | 82 |220 |23 | - |41 {C | - | - | - | - | - --------------------------------------------------------------------

It will be seen that men only were ill! [See next page.]

For average of hours worked elsewhere, see page 232 and page 237.

FARMERS' EARNINGS AND SPENDINGS [XIII]. If the reader should feel that the following details are lacking in comprehensiveness or definiteness, he should understand that reports of a national and authoritative character on the economic condition of the farmer were not available. There existed certain reports of the Ministry of Agriculture, but they were subjected to criticism. The National Agricultural Association had set on foot an elaborate enquiry as to the condition of the "middle farmer," but it was suggested that too much reliance was placed on arithmetical calculations and too little on known facts. I have had to rely, therefore, on official and private investigations made in various prefectures and villages, and I give a selection for what they are worth. Of the general condition of the agricultural population the reader is offered the impressions recorded in my different Chapters.

INCOMES AND EXPENDITURES OF PEASANT PROPRIETORS.--

The incomes and expenditures of the three households referred to in Appendix XII were:

|Income |Expenditure |Balance in hand ----------------------------------------- |yen |yen |yen A |477 |449 |28 B |915 |838 |77 C |971 |703 |68 -----------------------------------------

HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURES.--The household expenditures of the three families were, in yen:

|A |B |C ------------------------------------------- |yen |yen |yen Food |192.76 |216.64 |189.57 House | 2.32 | 2.24 | 1.20 Clothes | 18.72 | 15.16 | 10.08 Fuel | 12.72 | 13.53 | 21.00 Tools and furniture | 10.97 |160.18 | 1.66 Social intercourse | 9.58 | -- | 6.05 Education | 1.56 | -- | 4.15 Amusement | 3.30 | 2.03 | 18.00 Unforeseen | 7.85 | 13.72 | 22.33 Miscellaneous | 6.43 | 7.71 | 11.15 |-------|-------|------ |266.21 |431.21 |285.19 -------------------------------------------

It will be observed that the expenditure of B under the heading of furniture, 160 yen, is out of all proportion with the expenditures of A and C, 10 yen and 1 yen respectively. This is due to the fact that B had to provide a bride's chest for a daughter.

A balance sheet given me by a peasant proprietor in Aichi (5_tan_ of two-crop paddy and 5 _tan_ of upland) showed a balance in hand of 27 yen.

An agricultural expert said to me, "The peasant proprietors are the backbone of the country, but the condition of the backbone is not good. The peasant proprietors can make ends meet only by secondary employments." The expert showed me average figures for 18 farmers for 1891, 1900 and 1909. The average land of these men was a little over a _chō_ of paddy and 5 _tan_ of upland and some woodland. They had spent 39, 63 and 86 yen on artificial manures as against 100, 153 and 204 yen on food. The balance at the end of the year for the three years respectively was 27, 40 and 29 yen. "The figures reflect the general condition," I was told.

INCOMES AND EXPENDITURES OF TENANTS.--I may also note the circumstances of the largest and of the smallest tenant in an Aichi village I visited. The largest tenant family showed a balance in hand, 93 yen; the smallest tenant, 23 yen.

The accounts of 16 tenants for 1891 showed an average sum of 3 yen in hand at the end of the year, for 1900 a loss of 5 yen and for 1909 a gain of 1 yen. These men had an average of 9 _tan_ of paddy and 2 _tan_ of upland. The man who gave me the data said that in the north-east of Japan "the condition of the tenants is miserable--eating almost cattle food." The only bright spot for tenants was that, as compared with peasant proprietors, they were free to change their holdings and even their business.

INCOMES OF TENANTS AND PEASANT PROPRIETORS (SHIDZUOKA).--One tenant, who pays 159 yen in rent and taxes, shows a total income of 374 yen and an expenditure of 538 yen, with a _net loss of 164 yen_. "Farmers of this class," notes the local expert on the memorandum he gave me, "are becoming poorer every year." This tenant spent 2 yen on medicine and 5 yen on tobacco. ("Nothing else for enjoyment," pencils the expert.) In addition to parents, a man, a woman and a girl of the family worked. Food cost 321 yen (cost of fish and meat, 4-1/2 yen) and clothing 34 yen.

In a "model village," where "the farmers are always diligent," a small tenant's income was 508 yen and expenditure 527 yen; _loss_, 19 _yen_. Clothes cost 95 yen and food 190 yen. (Cost of fish and meat, 4-3/4 yen.) There was an expenditure on medicine of 1-1/2 yen and on tobacco and _saké_ ("only enjoyment") 10 yen.

Twenty per cent, of the farmers, I was told, "lead a middle-class life and occupy a somewhat rational area of land." The budgets often of these men, who own their own land, show a _balance of 85 yen_. "If they were tenants they would not be in such a good condition." "We think the farmer ought to have 2 _chō_."

BUDGETS OF FARMERS ON THE LAND OF THE HOMMA CLAN, YAMAGATA (page 186).--A tenant had 3 _chō_ of paddy and a small piece of vegetable land. There lived with him his wife, two sons and the widow and child of the eldest son. After paying his rent he had 30 _koku_ of rice left. The cost of production and taxes, 100 yen or a little more, had to come out of that. This tenant had a debt of 250 yen.

A sturdy wagoner with a sturdy horse lived with his wife and three children and his old mother. He hired 1 _chō_ for 28 _koku_ of rice and his crop was 40 _koku_. He spent 30 yen on manure and 4 yen went in taxes.

A middle-grade farmer owned a house and a little more than 1 _chō_ and rented 3 _chō_ of paddy and a patch for vegetables. His rent was about 38 _koku_. He spent 100 yen on manure and 128 yen for taxes, temple dues and regulation of the paddy. He employed at 2-1/2 _koku_ a man who lived with the family, also temporary labour for 48 days. His crop might be 100 _koku_ or more. He had no debt.

A third man was above the middle grade of farmer. His taxes were 240 yen and his manure bill 130 yen. His payment for paddy-field regulation, to continue for ten years, was 60 yen. He had three labourers and he also hired extra labour for 100 days. He had three unmarried sons of 40, 29 and 25. There were 260 yen of pensions in respect of the war service of one son and the death of another.

INCOME OF PEASANT PROPRIETORS (HOKKAIDO).--The following statistics for the whole of Hokkaido are based on the experience of peasant proprietors. The 2-1/2 _chō_ men are rice farmers--rice farming means farming with rice as the principal crop. The 5-_chō_ men are engaged in mixed farming:

Farmer's|Income | Income | Total | Cost of |Cost of |Total |Balance. Area | from |from Other| |Cultivation|Living |Outlay| |Farming| Work | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | yen | yen | yen | yen | yen | yen | yen 2-1/2 | | | | | | | chō | 366 | 43 | 409 | 107 | 276 | 382 | 27 | | | | | | | 5 chō | 441 | 33 | 474 | 119 | 301 | 423 | 52 -----------------------------------------------------------------------

It will be seen that mixed farming is the more profitable.

Income of Tenants (Hokkaido).--Professor Takaoka was kind enough to give me the following summaries of balance sheets of tenants of college lands in different parts of Hokkaido in 1915. (In all cases the accounts have been debited with wages for the farmer's family.)

Five _chō_. Income, 447 yen; _net return, 37 yen_. (Rye, wheat, oats, corn, soy, potatoes, grass, flax, buckwheat and rape. One horse and a few hens.)

Five _chō_. Income, 763 yen; _net return, 58 yen_. (Rye, wheat, oats, rape, soy, potatoes, corn, grass, flax and onions. Three cows, one horse.)

Ten _chō_. Income, 1,015 yen; _net return, 122 yen_. (Same crops with two cows and one horse and some hired labour.)

Five _chō_ (peppermint on 3 _chō_). Income, 882 yen; _net return_, 93 _yen_.

Three _chō_. Income, 1,195 yen; _net return, 332 yen_. (Vegetable farming. 206 yen paid for labour.)

Thirty _chō_. Income, 1,979 yen; _net return, 61 yen_. (Mixed farming; 632 yen paid for labour.)

Model _5-chō_ farm without rice. Made 604 yen, and 107 yen _net return_, farm capital being 1,487 yen. (208 yen allowed for labour, interest 128 yen, amortisation 27 yen, and taxes 13 yen.)

Milk farmer, 12 _chō_ and 90 cattle. Income, 12,280 yen; _net return of 3,641 yen_.

2,120 _chō_ (1,235 forest, 402 pasture, 110 artificial grass and 42 crops; 111 cattle). Income, 66,205 yen; _net return, 1,011 yen_. (Milk and meat farming.)

Average income and expenditure of 200 tenants of University land whose budgets Professor Morimoto (see Chapter XXXIV) investigated:

yen Crops 451.66 Wages earned 61.33 Horses 20.09 Poultry and eggs .96 Pigs .85 Manure (animal, 35 _kwan_; human, 14 _koku_) 24.50 Other income 29.64 ------ 589.03 yen Cultivation, etc. 206.32 Cost of living 303.33 ------ 509.65 ------ Profit 79.38 ======

The returns of capital yielded the following averages:

yen Tenant right in respect of 5-16 _chō_ 750.82 Buildings (32.2 _tsubo_) 195.95 Clothing 162.82 Horse (average 1.23) 108.48 Furniture 58.47 Implements 51.23 Poultry (average 2.58) 1.15 Pigs (average .12) .87 -------- Total 1,329.79 ========

VALUE OF NEW PADDY [XIV]. More delicious rice could be got, I was told, from well-fertilised barren land than from naturally fertile land. The first year the new paddy yielded per _tan_ an average of 1.2 _koku_, the second 1.6, the third 2, and this fourth year the yield would have been 2.3 had it not been for damage by storm.

AREAS AND CROPS OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF RICE [XV]. In 1919 there was grown of paddy rice 2,984,750 _chō_ (2,729,639 ordinary, 255,111 glutinous) and of upland rice 141,365 _chō_. Total, 3,126,115 _chō_. The yield (husked, uncleaned) was of paddy 61,343,403 _koku_ (ordinary, 56,438,005; glutinous, 4,905,398); of upland, 1,839,312. Total, 63,182,715 _koku_; value, 2,352,145,519 yen.

In 1877 the area is reputed to have been 1,940,000 _chō_ with a yield of 24,450,000 _koku_ and in 1882 2,580,000 _chō_ with a yield of 30,692,000 _koku_. The average of the five years 1910-14 was 3,033,000 _chō_ with a yield of 57,006,000 _koku_; of the five years 1915-19, 3,081,867 _chō_ with a yield of 94,817,431 _koku_.

In a prefecture in south-western Japan I found that 2 _koku_ 5 _to_ (or 2-1/2 _koku_, there being 10 _to_ in a _koku_) per _tan_ was common and that from 3 _koku_ to 3 _koku_ 5 _to_ was reached. "A good yield for 1 _tan_," says an eminent authority, "is 3 _koku_, or on the best fields even 4 _koku_." The average yield in _koku_ per _tan_ for the whole country has been (paddy-field rice only): 1882, 1.19; 1894-8, 1.38; 1899-1903, 1.44; 1904-8, 1.57; 1909-13, 1.63; 1914-18, 1.86; 1919, 1.99; 1920, 2.05 (ordinary, 2.06; glutinous, 1.92). Upland rice in 1920, 1.30 as against 1.02 in 1909. All these figures are for husked, uncleaned rice.

BARLEY AND WHEAT CROPS [XVI]. The following table (average of five years, 1913-17) shows the yields per _tan_ of the two sorts of barley and of wheat and the average yield all three together in comparison with the rice yield (all quantities husked):

_go_ _go_ Barley 1,672 | All three together 1,307 Naked barley 1,172 | Rice 1,808 Wheat 1,073 |

Naked barley is grown as an upland crop, as are ordinary barley and wheat; but it is more largely grown as a second crop in paddies than either barley or wheat. The barleys are chiefly used for human food with or without rice. Wheat is eaten in macaroni, sweetstuffs and bread. It is also used in considerable quantities in the manufacture of soy, the chief ingredient of which is beans. There was imported in the year 1920 wheat to the value of 28-1/2 million yen, and flour to the value of 3-1/4 million yen. Macaroni is largely made of buckwheat as well as of wheat. The other grain crop is millet, which is eaten by the poorest farmers. In 1918, as against 60 million _koku_ of rice, there were grown 5 million _koku_ of beans and peas. The crops of barley were 17 million, of wheat 6 million, of millet 3-1/4 million, and of buckwheat 3/4 million. More than a million _kwan_ of sweet potatoes were produced and nearly half a million of "Irish" potatoes. (The figures for barley and wheat are for 1919.)

COST AND PRICE OF RICE [XVII]. The annual figures (from Aichi) for the years 1894 to 1915 (page 384) show the cost of producing a _tan_ of rice, that is the summer crop. The amounts per _tan_ are calculated on the basis of the expenses of a tenant who is cropping 8 _tan_. The totals for the winter crop are also given. The figures which appear on the opposite page were described to me by the farmer concerned as "compiled on the basis of investigations by the chairman of the village agricultural association and by its managers and still further proved and quite trustworthy." It will be seen that the value of the winter crop is low; a secondary employment is usually a better thing for the farmer. In one or two places there is a sen or so difference in the additions which may have been made by the transcriber from the Japanese original. The difference in amounts of rent is due to difference in fields rented and also to reduction allowed owing to bad crops. The difference in the income from crops is usually due to destruction by hail or wind.

COST AND PRICE OF RICE (see page 383)

|Year | |Yield in | |_koku_ | | |Reserved for Rent | | |and Seeds (_koku_) | | | |Market Price per | | | |_koku_ (yen) | | | | |Gross Income including | | | | |Straw and Chaff, | | | | |not usually sold (yen) | | | | | |Manures (yen) | | | | | | |Taxes and Amortisation | | | | | | |of Implements (sen) | | | | | | | |Total Outlay (yen) | | | | | | | | |Net Income from Summer | | | | | | | | |Crop of Rice (yen) | | | | | | | | | |Days of Labour on | | | | | | | | | |Summer Crop of Rice | | | | | | | | | | |Net Income from | | | | | | | | | | |Winter Crop (?Barley) | | | | | | | | | | | |Total Net | | | | | | | | | | | |Income from | | | | | | | | | | | |both Crops. |------|------|------|-------|-------|-----|----|------|-------|------|-------|-------| | 1894 | 2.23 | 1.05 | 7.66 | 9.81 | 2 | 21 | 2.21 | 7.60 | 2.5 | 2.51 | 10.11 | | 1895 | 2.13 | 1.05 | 8.09 | 8.71 | 2 | 21 | 2.26 | 6.45 | 21.5 | 2.48 | 8.92 | | 1896 | 1.53 | .80 | 8.67 | 6.89 | 2.4 | 22 | 2.58 | 4.31 | 21.5 | 3.38 | 7.69 | | 1897 | 1.88 | 1.05 | 11.53 | 10.63 | 2.9 | 23 | 3.13 | 7.50 | 21.5 | 5.22 | 12.72 | | 1898 | 2.39 | 1.05 | 14.62 | 21.13 | 3.2 | 25 | 3.40 | 17.73 | 21.5 | 5.50 | 23.23 | | 1899 | 1.75 | .88 | 12.05 | 11.48 | 3.8 | 30 | 4.11 | 7.37 | 21 | 2.22 | 9.99 | | 1900 | 2.14 | 1.05 | 11.11 | 13.24 | 4.1 | 31 | 4.40 | 8.84 | 21 | 4.22 | 13.06 | | 1901 | 2.10 | 1.05 | 10.53 | 12.06 | 4 | 32 | 4.35 | 7.71 | 21 | 3.87 | 11.58 | | 1902 | 1.86 | .99 | 12.99 | 12.40 | 3.1 | 38 | 3.51 | 8.89 | 21 | 4.11 | 13 | | 1903 | 2.06 | 1.04 | 12.50 | 13.85 | 3.4 | 49 | 3.79 | 10.05 | 21 | 6 | 16.85 | | 1904 | 2.24 | 1.03 | 12.20 | 16 | 2.6 | 53 | 3.11 | 9.89 | 21 | 6.06 | 15.95 | | 1905 | 1.77 | .99 | 13.42 | 11.60 | 2.1 | 46 | 2.55 | 9.05 | 21 | 6.67 | 15.71 | | 1906 | 1.96 | 1.05 | 15.15 | 15 09 | 4 | 56 | 4.61 | 10.49 | 21 | 5.79 | 16.27 | | 1907 | 1.98 | 1.14 | 16.39 | 16.69 | 4.4 | 42 | 4.83 | 11.84 | 21 | 8.60 | 20.43 | | 1908 | 2.21 | 1.14 | 14.29 | 16.80 | 5.1 | 42 | 5.54 | 11.26 | 21 | 10.79 | 22.05 | | 1909 | 2.27 | 1.14 | 11.63 | 14.39 | 3.7 | 99 | 4.64 | 9.75 | 21 | 11.49 | 21.24 | | 1910 | 2.02 | 1.14 | 14.09 | 13.37 | 4.5 | 80 | 5.27 | 8.51 | 21 | 12.41 | 20.91 | | 1911 | 2.22 | 1.14 | 16.67 | 19.72 | 4.4 | 78 | 5.13 | 14.59 | 21 | 13.49 | 28.08 | | 1912 | 2.02 | .90 | 21.74 | 26.48 | 5.9 | 75 | 6.60 | 19.88 | 21.5 | 3.73 | 23.6 | | 1913 | 2.31 | 1.14 | 20.83 | 24.67 | 6.5 | 79 | 7.30 | 17.37 | 21.5 | 12.62 | 30 | | 1914 | 2.48 | 1.14 | 12.50 | 18.29 | 5.8 | 78 | 6.53 | 11.75 | 21.5 | 11.54 | 23.30 | | 1915 | 2.36 | 1.20 | 11.77 | 14.91 | 5.8 | 82 | 6.67 | 8.24 | 21.5 | 9.67 | 18.91 |

This table may be supplemented by the following prices for (unpolished) rice in Tokyo: 1916, 13 yen 76 sen; 1917, 19 yen 84 sen; 1918, 32 yen 75 sen; 1919, 45 yen 99 sen.

In the spring of 1921 the League for the Prevention of Sales of Rice at a Sacrifice proposed that rice should not be sold under 35 yen per _koku_. The price passed the figure of 35 yen in July 1918. At the time the League's proposals were made the Ministry of Agriculture was quoted as stating that the cost of producing rice "is now 40 yen per _koku_." The accuracy of the figures on which the Ministry's estimates are made is frequently called in question.

CULTIVATED AREA IN JAPAN AND GREAT BRITAIN [XVIII]. In 1919 there were in Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands) 15,808,000 acres of arable, 15,910,000 of pasture and 13,647,000 of grazing, or a total of 45,365,000 acres out of a total area of 56,990,000 acres. In Japan there were 15,044,202 acres of paddy and of cultivated upland, 46,958,000 acres of forest and 8,773,000 acres of waste; total 70,775,000, out of 90,880,000 acres. The area of the United Kingdom without Ireland is 56,990,080 acres; that of Japan Proper, 75,988,378 acres. The population of the United Kingdom without Ireland (in 1911) was 41,126,000, and of Japan Proper (in 1911) 51,435,000. (See also Appendix XXX.)

HUMAN LABOUR _v_. CATTLE POWER [XIX]. The Department of Agriculture stated in 1921 that "from 200 to 300, sometimes more than 500 days' labour [of one man] are required to grow a _chō_ of rice." The area of paddy which is ploughed by horse or cattle power was 61.89 per cent. The area of upland so cultivated was only 38.97 per cent. The "average year's work of the ordinary adult farmer" was put at 200 days. The Department estimated an average man's day's work (10 hours) as follows:

But I have never seen a scythe in use in Japan!

MANURE [XX]. The value of the manure used in Japan in a year has been estimated at about 220 million yen, but for the three years ending 1916 it averaged 241 millions, as follows:

Dr. Sato puts the artificial manure used per _tan_ at a sixth of that of Belgium and a quarter of that of Great Britain and Germany. See also Appendix IV. An agricultural expert once said to me, "Japanese farmer he keep five head of stock, his own family."

SOWING OF RICE [XXI]. A common seeding time is the eighty-eighth day of the year according to the old calendar, say May 1 or 2. Transplanting is very usual at the end of May or early in June. In Kagawa, Shikoku, I found that rice was sown at the beginning of May or even at the end of April, the transplanting being done in mid-June. The harvest was obtained 10 per cent. about September 10th, 30 per cent. in October and 60 per cent. about the beginning of November. The winter crop of naked barley was sown in the first quarter of December and was harvested late in May or early in June, so there was just time for the rice planting in mid-June.

In Kochi the first crop is sown about March 15, the seedlings are put out in mid-May and the harvest is ready about August 10. The second crop, which has been sown in June, is ready with its seedlings from August 13 to August 15, and the harvest arrives about November 1 and 2. The first crop may yield about 3 _koku_, the second 1-1/2 _koku_.

A good deal depends in raising a big crop on a good seed bed. This is got by reducing the quantity of seed used and by applying manure wisely. Whereas formerly as much as from 5 to 7 _go_ of seed was sown per _tsubo_, the biggest crops are now got from 1 _go_.

The Japanese names of the most widely grown varieties are Shinriki, Aikoku, Omachi, Chikusei and Sekitori. At an experiment station I copied the names of the varieties on exhibition there: Banzai, Patriotism, Japanese Embroidery, Good-looking, Early Power of God, Bamboo, Small Embroidery, Power of God, Mutual Virtue, Yellow Bamboo, Late White, Power of God (glutinous), Silver Rice Cake and Eternal Rice Field.

There are several thousand _chō_ in the vicinity of Tokyo where, owing to the low temperature of the marshy soil, the seed is sown direct in the paddies, not broadcast but at regular intervals and in thrice or four times the normal quantities.

RATE OF PLANTING [XXII]. I have been told that an adult who has the seedlings brought to his or her hand can stick in a thousand an hour. The early varieties may be set in clumps of seven or eight plants; middle-growth sorts may contain from five to six; the latest kind may include only three or four. The number of clumps planted may be 42 per _tsubo_, which, as a _tsubo_ is nearly four square yards, is about ten per square yard. The clumps are put in their places by being pushed into the mud. A straight line is kept by means of a rope. The success of the crop depends in no small degree on skilful planting.

HOW MUCH RICE DOES A JAPANESE EAT? [XXIII]. The daily consumption of rice per head, counting young and old, is nearly 3 _go_. (A _go_ is roughly a third of a pint.) A sturdy labourer will consume at least 5 _go_ in a day, and sometimes 7 or even 10 _go_. The allowance for soldiers is 6 _go_. These quantities represent the rice uncooked. In recent years more and more rice has been eaten by those who formerly ate barley or mainly barley. And some who once ate a good deal of millet and _hiye_ are now eating a certain amount of rice. The average annual consumption per head of the Japanese population (Korea and Formosa excluded from the calculation) was: 1888-93, 948 _go_; 1908-13, 1,037 _go_; 1913-18, 1,050 _go_. The averages of 25 years (1888-1912) were: production, 42,756,584 _koku_; consumption, 44,410,725 _koku_; deficit, 1,984,970 _koku_; population, 45,140,094; per head, 0.980 _koku_. In 1921 the Department of Agriculture, estimating a population of 55,960,000 (see Appendix XXX) and an annual consumption per head of 1.1 _koku_ per year, put the national consumption for a year at about 61,550,000 _koku_. See also Appendix XXVI.

IMPORTED AND EXPORTED RICE [XXIV]. "Good rice" is imported from Korea and Formosa. The objection is to "Rangoon" rice. But most of the imported rice does not come from Rangoon but from Saigon. The figures for 1919 were in yen: China, 283,011; British India, 1,012,979; Kwantung, 15,053,977; Siam, 29,367,430; French Indo-China, 116,313,525; other countries, 39,918; total, 162,070,840. The exports in 1919 were in yen: China, 1,354; Australia, 6,570; Asiatic Russia, 165,463; Kwantung, 213,633; British America, 356,600; United States, 476,756; Hawaii, 3,046,598; other countries, 60,707--all obviously in the main for Japanese consumption. The total imports and exports were in _koku_ and yen over a period of years:

| Imports | Exports | Year |-----------------------|-----------|-----------| | _Koku_ |Value (yen)| _Koku_ |Value (yen)| -------------------------------------------------------- 1909 | 1,325,243 | 13,585,817| 422,513 | 5,867,290 | 1910 | 918,627 | 8,644,439| 429,251 | 5,900,477 | 1911 | 1,719,566 | 11,721,085| 216,198 | 3,940,541 | 1912 | 2,234,437 | 30,193,481| 208,423 | 4,367,824 | 1913 | 3,637,269 | 48,472,304| 204,002 | 4,372,979 | 1914 | 2,022,644 | 24,823,933| 260,738 | 4,974,108 | 1915 | 457,606 | 4,886,125| 662,629 | 9,676,969 | 1916 | 309,158 | 3,087,616| 686,479 |11,197,356 | 1917 | 564,376 | 6,513,373| 769,129 |14,662,546 | 1918 | 4,647,168 | 89,755,678| 264,565 | 8,321,965 | 1919 | 4,642,382 |162,070,840| 95,219 | 4,327,690 | 1920 | 471,083 | 18,059,194| 116,249 | 5,897,675 | --------------------------------------------------------

The twenty-five years' average (1888-1912) of excess of import over export was 1,339,493 _koku_. See also Appendix XXVIII.

INCREASE OF RICE YIELD AND OF POPULATION [XXV].

| | |Percentage | | Percentage | 1882 | 1913 | of | 1918 | of | | |Increase | |Increase[*] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Population |36,700,000 |53,362,000 | 45 |66,851,000 | 55 Rice crop |30,692,000 |50,222,000 | 63 |53,893,000 | 75 (_koku_) | | | | | -----------------------------------------------------------------------

* 1882-1918. The degree to which the increase in production will be maintained is of course a matter for discussion. As far as rice is concerned, it must be borne in mind that there is an increasing consumption per head.

FARMERS' DIET [XXVI]. It is officially stated in 1921 that "the common farm diet consists of a mixture of cooked rice and barley as the principal food with vegetables and occasionally fish." The barley is what is known as naked barley. Ordinary barley is eaten in northern Japan, but two-thirds of the barley eaten elsewhere is the wheat-like naked barley, which cannot be grown in Fukushima and the north. The husking of ordinary barley is hard work. The young men do it during the night when it is cool. They keep on until cock-crow. Their songs and the sound of their mallets make a memorable impression as one passes through a village on a moonlight night. Another substitute for rice beyond millet is _hiye_ (panic grass). In the south it is regarded as a weed of the paddies, but in the north many _tan_ are planted with this heavy-yielding small grain.

TAXATION [XXVII]. Before 1906 national taxation was 2.5 per cent. of the legal price of land. In 1900 it was 3.3 per cent., in 1904 5.5 per cent., in 1911 4.7 per cent, and in 1915 4.5 per cent. But local taxation increased in greater proportion.

FLAVOUR OF RICE AND PRICE FLUCTUATIONS [XXVIII]. Japanese rice has a fatty flavour which the people of Japan like. Therefore the native rice commands a higher price in Japan than Chinese or Indian rice. With the exception of a small quantity exported to Japanese abroad, Japanese rice is consumed in Japan. The supply of it and the demand for it are exclusively a Japanese affair. Naturally, when the crop fails the price soars, and when there is a superabundant harvest the price comes down to the level of foreign rice. Here is the secret of the enormous fluctuations in the price of Japanese rice with which the authorities have so often endeavoured to cope.

The Government granary plan is the third big effort of authority to manage rice prices. The Okuma Government, under the administration of which rice went down to 14 yen per _koku_, had a Commission to raise prices. The Terauchi Ministry, at a time when prices rose, touching 55 yen, had a Commission to bring prices down.

AREA AND CLIMATE [XXIX]. Japan Proper comprises a main island, three other large islands in sight of the main island, and archipelagos--4,000 islets have been counted. The main island, Honshu, with Shikoku behind it, lies off the coast of Korea; the next largest and northernmost island, Hokkaido, off the coast of Siberia, and the remaining sizeable island and the southernmost, Kyushu, off the coast of China over against the mouth of the Yangtse. The area of this territory, that is of Japan before the acquirement of Formosa, Korea, southern Saghalien and part of Manchuria, is about 142,000 square miles in area, which is that of Great Britain in possession not of one Wales but of four, or nearly 1 per cent. of the area of Asia. But there are several million more people in Japan than there are inhabitants of Great Britain and thrice as many as there are Britons in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India. (See also Appendix XXX.) Japan, which lies between the latitudes of Cairo and the Crimea, may be said to consist of mountains, of which fifty are active volcanoes, with some land, either hilly or boggy, at the foot of them. It is nowhere more than 200 miles across and in one place is only 50. A note on the ocean currents which exercise an influence on agriculture will be found on page 195. The protection afforded to the eastern prefectures by mountain ranges is obvious. Generally the summer temperature of Japan is higher and the winter temperature is lower than is recorded in Europe and America within the same latitudes.

"The mild climate and abundant rainfall," says the Department of Agriculture, "stimulate a luxuriant forest development throughout the country which in turn provides ample fountain heads for rivers. The rivers and streams run in all directions, affording opportunity for irrigation all over the country. The insular position of the country renders its humidity high and its rainfall abundant when compared with Continental countries. The rainy season prevails during the months of June and July, making this season risky for the harvest of wheat and barley; on the other hand it affords a beneficent irrigation supply to paddy-grown rice, which is the most important crop. The characteristic feature of the climate in the greater part of the islands is the frequency of storms in the months of August and September. As the flowers of the rice plant commence to bloom during the same period, these late summer storms cause much damage."

The weather in Tokyo in 1918 was as follows:

|Jan.|Feb.|Mar.|Apl.| May|June|July|Aug.|Sept.|Oct.|Nov.|Dec. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rain and | | | | | | | | | | | | snow (mm.)| 10| 65| 163| 108| 123| 149| 82| 78| 202| 135| 142| 80 Temp. (C.) | 1.6| 3.6| 6.7|11.7|16.7|20.2|26.0|26.0| 22.6|16.0|10.4|3.9 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

The varied climate of Japan is indicated by the following statistics for centres as far distant as Nagasaki in the extreme south-west and Sapporo in Hokkaido:

|Nagasaki| Kyoto |Tokyo | Niigata | Aomori | Sapporo ----------------|--------|-------|------|---------|--------|--------- Days of rain or| | | | | | snow | 179 | 176 | 144 | 218 | 229 | 216 Average | | | | | | temp. (C.) | 14.9 | 13.6 | 13.8 | 12.5 | 9.4 | 7.3 Maximum | 36.7 | 37.2 | 36.6 | 39.1 | 36.0 | 33.4 Minimum | _5.6_ | _11.9_| _8.1_| _9.7_ | _19.0_ | _25.6_ ---------------------------------------------------------------------

The italicised temperatures are below zero. Average dates of last frost: Tokyo, April 6; Nagoya, April 13; Matsumoto, May 17.

POPULATION OF JAPAN, MANCHURIA AND MONGOLIA [XXX]. The population of the Empire according to the 1920 census was 77,005,510, which included Korea, 17,284,207; Formosa, 3,654,398; Saghalien, 105,765; and South Manchuria (that is, the Kwantung Peninsula), 80,000. In Old Japan (Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu with the near islands, and Loo-choos and Bonins) there were 53,602,043, and in Hokkaido (including Kuriles) 2,359,097.

Tokyo is the largest city, 2,173,000, followed by Osaka, 1,252,000. Kobe and Kyoto have a little more than half a million; Nagoya and Yokohama four hundred thousand apiece. Ten other cities have a hundred thousand odd.

In the following table the populations and areas of Japan, Great Britain and the United States are compared:

Country | Area | Population | Population | | | per sq. mile ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Japan (excluding Korea, Formosa | | | and Saghalien) | 142,000 | 55,961,140 | 394 | | (1920) | British Isles | 121,636 | 47,306,664[*] | 388 | | (1921) | United States (excluding Alaska | | | and oversea possessions) |3,000,000| 105,683,108 | 35 | | (1920) | ------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Ireland taken at 1911 census figures.

Japan's 394 per square mile is lowered by the population of Hokkaido (2,359,097), which is only 66 per square mile. The population of the three chief Japanese islands is: Honshu, the mainland (41,806,930), 471; Shikoku (3,066,890), 423; and Kyushu (8,729,088), 511. (These figures are for 1920.) "As regards density per square kilometre," writes an official of the Imperial Bureau of Statistics in the _Japan Year-book_, with the figures antecedent to the 1920 census before him, "it is calculated at 140 for Japan and this compares as follows with Belgium (1910) 252, England and Wales (1911) 239, Holland (1909) 171, Italy (1911) 121, Germany (1910) 120 and France 44. When comparison is made on the basis of habitable area Japan may be considered to surpass all as to density, for while in Japan it constitutes only 19 per cent, of the total area, the ratio is as high as 74 for Belgium, 73 for England and Wales, 67 for Holland, 76 for Italy, 65 for Germany and 70 for France." The Professor of Agricultural Science at Tokyo University says: "The area under cultivation, even in the densely populated parts, is comparatively smaller than in any other country."

In a statement issued in 1921 the Department of Agriculture reckoned the population at 145 per square kilometre and recorded the mean rate of increase "in recent years" as 12.06 per 1,000. It stated that the density of the rural population was 44 per square kilometre or 9.42 per hectare of arable, in other words that the density "is higher than that of France, Belgium, Switzerland and some other countries where the agriculture is marked by fairly intensive methods." Mr. Nikaido, of the Bureau of Statistics, writes in the _Japan Year-book_ that the annual increase of Japan's population was 14.78 per 1,000 for 1909-13 and 12.06 for 1914-18, "a rate greater than in any civilised country, with the exception of Germany and Rumania in the pre-War years."

The birth rate is high, but so is the mortality. The death rate of minors is thrice that of Germany and Great Britain. Here the increasing industrialisation of the country is no doubt playing its part. The ratio of still births has steadily risen since the eighties. The ratio of births, other than still births, per 1,000 of population, which in 1889-93 was 28.6, increased by 1909-13 to 33.7; but the death rate fell only from 21.1 to 20.6. The ratio of unmarried, 63.22 in 1893, was 66.22 in 1918.

The following figures for Japan Proper are printed by the _Financial and Economic Annual_, issued by the Department of Finance:

Year. | Total. |Annual Increase |Average Increase per | |of Population. |1,000 Inhabitants. --------------------------------------------------------- 1910 | 50,716,600 | -- | 14.09} 1911 | 51,435,400 |718,800 | 14.17} 1912 | 52,167,000 |731,600 | 14.22} 14.21 1913 | 52,911,800 |744,800 | 14.28} 1914 | 53,668,600 |756,800 | 14.30} | | | 1915 | 54,448,200 |779,600 | 14.53} 1916 | 55,235,000 |786,800 | 14.45} 1917 | 56,035,100 |800,100 | 14.49} 14.50 1918 | 56,851,300 |816,200 | 14.57} 1919 | 57,673,938 |822,638 | 14.47} 1920 | 55,961,140 | -- | -- ---------------------------------------------------------

It will be seen that for the year 1920 there was a big drop. The population of 55,961,140 for the year 1920 is the actual population as returned by the census; the figures of the preceding years are "based," it is explained to me, "on the local registrars' entries. The national census has demonstrated that the figures were larger than the actual number of inhabitants, the discrepancies being partly due to erroneous and duplicate registration and partly to the exodus of persons to the colonies or foreign countries whilst retaining their legal domiciles at home. But the table serves to show the rate of increase." A million and three-quarters is a substantial figure, however, to account for in this way. It would seem reasonable to suppose that the increased cost of living, marriage at a later age than formerly and increased mortality due directly or indirectly to the factory system have arrested the rate of increase of the population in recent years. For trustworthy figures of the Japanese population we must await the next census and compare its figures with those of the 1920 census, the first to be taken scientifically.

A considerable part of Japan is uninhabitable. Of how much of the British Isles can this be said? The fact that there are in Japan fifty more or less active volcanoes, about a thousand hot springs and two dozen mountains between 12,000 and 8,000 ft. high speaks for itself. Ben Nevis is only 4,400, Snowdon only 3,500 ft.

The population of Korea in 1920 (17,284,207) was 239 per square mile. According to _Whitaker_ for 1921 the population of Manchuria (11 millions) is 30 per square mile, and of Mongolia (3 millions) 2.8.

SMALL FARMS DECREASING [XXXI].

Year |Below 5 |Over 5 |Over 5 |Over 2 |Over 3 |Over 5 |_tan_ |_tan_ |_chō_ |_chō_ |_chō_ |_chō_ ------------------------------------------------------ 1908 |37.28 |32.61 |19.51 |6.44 |3.01 |1.15 1912 |37.14 |33.25 |19.61 |5.96 |2.83 |1.21 1918 |35.54 |33.30 |20.70 |6.33 |2.82 |1.31 1919 |35.36 |33.18 |20.68 |6.21 |2.83 |1.74 ----------------------------------------------------

See also Appendix XLVII.

FORESTS [XXXII]. The following figures for 1918 show, in thousand _chō_, the ownership of forests (bared tracts in brackets): Crown, 1,303 (89); State, 7,288 (392); prefectures, cities, towns and villages, 2,894 (1,383); temples and shrines, 111 (15); 7,186 (1,630); total, 18,782 (3,509). The largest yield is from sugi (cryptomeria), pine and _hinoki_ (_Charmae-cyparis obtusa_).

ARMAMENTS [XXXIII]. 1,505 million yen of the national debt is for armaments and military purposes against 923 million yen for reproductive undertakings (railways, harbours, drainage, roads, steelworks, mining, telephones, etc.), 143 million for exploitation of Formosa, Korea and Saghalien, 123 million for financial adjustment and 98 million for feudal pensions and feudal debt. Of the expenditure for 1920-1, 846 million, some 395 million were for the army and navy. During a period of 130 years the United States Government has spent nearly four-fifths of its revenue on war or objects related to war.

LANDOWNING AND FARMING [XXXIV]. Before the Restoration the farmers were the tenants of the daimyos' vassals, the samurai, or of the daimyos direct. When the daimyos gave up their lands the Crown made the farmers the owners of the land they occupied. Its legal value was assessed and the national land tax was fixed at 3 per cent, and the local tax at 1 per cent. Various adjustments have since taken place.

The Japanese Constitutional Labour Party has insisted in a communication to the International Labour Conference at Geneva that Japanese tenant farmers are not properly called farmers but that they are "labourers pure and simple." See Appendix LXXVI.

STATE RAILWAYS [XXXV]. The railways, which were nationalised in 1907, extended in 1919 to 6,000 miles. There were also nearly 2,000 miles of light railways (in addition to 1,368 of electric street cars). Most of the lines are single track. The gauge is 3 ft. 6 in. The Government has proposed gradually to electrify the whole system.

ILLEGITIMACY [XXXVI]. In Japan illegitimacy is a question not of morals but of law. That is to say, it is a question of registration. If a husband omits to register his marriage he is not legally married. Thus it is possible for there to be born to a married pair a child which is technically illegitimate. If the child should die at an early age it is equally possible for it to appear on the official records as illegitimate. A birth must be registered within a fortnight. It may be thought perhaps that it is practicable for the father to register his marriage after the birth of the child and within the time allowed for registration. It is possible but it is not always easy. An application for the registration of the marriage of a man under twenty-five must bear the signature of his parents and the signature of two persons who testify that the required consent has been regularly obtained. In the event of a man's father having "retired," the signature of the head of the family must be secured. If a man is over twenty-five, then the signatures of his parents or of any two relatives will suffice. Now suppose that a man is living at a distance from his birthplace or suppose that the head of his family is travelling. Plainly, there may be a difficulty in securing a certificate in time. Therefore, because, as has been explained, no moral obloquy attaches to unregistered marriage or to unregistered or legally illegitimate children, registration is often put off. When a man removes from one place to another and thereupon registers, it may be that his marriage and his children may be illegitimate in one place and legitimate in another. There is a difference between actual and legal domicile. A man may have his domicile in Tokyo but his citizen rights in his native village.

SAKÉ AND BEER [XXXVII]. Saké is sold in 1 or 2 _go_ bottles at from 10 to 25 sen for 2 _go_. As it is cheaper to buy the liquor unbottled most people have it brought home in the original brewery tub. There are five sorts of _saké_: _seishu_ (refined), _dakushu_ (unrefined or muddy), _shirozake_ (white _saké_), _mirin_ (sweet _saké_) and _shōchū_ (distilled _saké_). _Saké_ may contain from 10 to 14 per cent. of alcohol; _shōchū_ is stronger; _mirin_ has been described as a liqueur. Japanese beers contain from 1 to 2 per cent. less alcohol than English beers and only about a quarter of the alcohol in _saké_. More than four-fifths of it is sold in bottles. Beer is replacing _saké_ to some extent, but owing to the increase in the population of Japan the total consumption of _saké_ (about 4,000,000 _koku_) remains practically the same. In 1919 beer and _saké_ were exported to the value of 7,200,000 and 4,500,000 yen respectively.

MINERAL PRODUCTION [XXXVIII]. In 1919 the production was as follows: gold, 1,938,711 _momme_, value 9,681,494 yen; silver, 42,822,160 _momme_, value 11,131,861 yen; copper, 130,737,861 _kin_, value 67,581,475 yen; iron, steel and iron pyrites, 169,545,050 _kwan_, the value of the steel being 72,666,867 yen; coal, 31,271,093 metric tons, value 442,540,941 yen.

JAPAN AS SILK PRODUCER [XXXIX], In exportation of silk, Japan, which in 1919 had under sericulture 8.6 of her total cultivated area and 17.1 per cent, of her upland, passed Italy in 1901 and China in 1910. Her exportation is now twice that of China. In production her total is thrice that of Italy. France is a long way behind Italy. The production of China is an unknown quantity.

As to the advantages and drawbacks of Japan for sericulture the Department of Agriculture wrote in 1921: "Japan is not favourably placed, inasmuch as atmospheric changes are often very violent, and the air becomes damp in the silk-culture seasons. This is especially the case in the season of spring silkworms, for the cold is severe at the beginning and the air becomes excessively damp as the rainy season sets in. The intense heat in July and August, too, is very trying for the summer and autumn breeds. Compared with France and Italy, Japan seems to be heavily handicapped, but the abundance of mulberry leaves all over the land and the comparatively rich margin of spare labour among the farmers have proved great advantages."

The length of the sericultural season ranges from 54 days in spring to 31 or 32 days in autumn, but there are variations according to weather, methods and seed. The season begins with the incubation period. Then follows the rearing. Last is the period in which the caterpillars mount the little straw stacks provided for them in order that they may wind themselves into cocoons. I do not enter into the technics of the retardation and stimulation of seed in order to delay or to hasten the hatch according to the movements of the market. Hydrochloric and sulphuric-acid baths and electricity are used as stimulants; storage in "wind holes" is practised to defer hatching.

Cocoons are reckoned both by the _kwan_ of 8-1/4 lbs. and by the _koku_ of approximately 5 bushels. The cocoon production in 1918 worked out at about 16-1/2 bushels per acre of mulberry or 18 bushels per family engaged in sericulture. About 34 million bushels of cocoons are produced. In 1919 the production was 270,800,000 kilos. The average production of a _tambu_ of mulberry field was 1.356 _koku_. In 1919 a _koku_ was worth on the average 106.81 yen (including double and waste cocoons). The cost of producing cocoons rose from 4.105 yen per _kwamme_ in 1916 to 11.284 yen in 1920. The daily wages of labourers employed by the farmers rose from 62 sen for men and 47 sen for women in 1910 to 1 yen 93 sen for men and 1 yen 44 sen for women in 1920. With the slump, the price of cocoons fell below the cost of production and there was trouble in several districts when wages were due. The labourers engaged for the silk seasons of 1916 numbered 341,577, of whom 30,000 came from other than their employers' prefectures. These people migrate from the early to the late districts and so manage to provide themselves with work during a considerable period. As many as 5-1/2 per cent, of the persons engaged in the industry are labourers. Many employment agencies are engaged in supplying labour.

It has been estimated that the labour of 19.8 persons (200 per hectare) is needed for a _tambu_ of mulberry field. The silkworms hatched from a card of eggs (laid by 100 moths) are supposed to call for the labour of 49.2 persons (1,456 per kilo, 2.204 lbs.)

The production of _cocoons_ rose from 0.866 _koku_ per card in 1914 to 1.105 in 1918, or from 4,412,000 to 6,832,000.

More than three-quarters of the raw silk produced used to be exported. Now, with the increase of factories in Japan (the figures are for 1918), only 67 per cent, goes abroad, the bulk of it to the United States, which obtained from Japan, in 1917-18, 75 per cent., and in 1919, it has been stated, 90 per cent, of its total supply. About 28 per cent, of the world's consumption is supplied by Japan. Whereas in 1915 the output of raw silk was 5,460,000 _kwan_ valued at 217,746,000 yen, it was in 1918 7,891,000 _kwan_ valued at 546,543,000 yen. While in 1915-16 the percentage of Japanese exporters to foreign exporters was 64-4, it had risen in 1919-20 to 77.5. Against 450 _chō_ of mulberries in 1914 there were in 1918 508,993 _chō_. The total export of raw silk and silk textiles to all countries in 1920 was 382 and 158 million yen respectively. In 1919, 96 per cent. of the raw silk Japan exported went to the United States and 46 out of 101 million yens' worth of exported silk textiles (habutal). Japan's whole trade with the United States is worth 880 million yen a year. But the proportion of basins in the factories steadily increases. There are nearly five thousand factories, big and little. A well-informed correspondent writes to me: "You know of course of the big organisation subsidised by the Government to control prices and not to make too much silk. The truth is the silk interest became too powerful and the Government is not a free agent."

TUBERCULOSIS [XL]. Phthisis and tuberculosis sweep off 22 per cent, and bronchitis and inflammation of the lungs 18 per cent., or together more than a third of the population. See also Appendix LXIX.

WOMEN WORKERS [XLI]. In addition to women and girls working in agriculture, in the mines, in the factories and & trades there are said to be 1,200,000 in business and the public services. Teachers number about 52,000, nurses 33,000, midwives 28,000 and doctors 700.

FACTORY FOOD AND "DEFIANCE OF HYGIENIC RULES" [XLII]. Dr. Kuwata says in the _Japan Year-book_ (1920-1) that "in cotton mills where machinery is run day and night it is not uncommon when business is brisk to put operatives to 18 hours' work. In such cases holidays are given only fortnightly or are entirely withheld. The silk factories in Naganoken generally put their operatives to 14 or 16 hours' work and in only a small portion are the hours 13."

Summarising a report of the Department of Agriculture and Commerce, he says of the factory workers: "The bulk of workers are female and are chiefly fed with boiled rice in 43 per cent. of the factories. In other factories the staple food is poor, the rice being mixed with cheaper barley, millet or sweet potato in the proportion of from 20 to 50 per cent. In most cases subsidiary dishes consist of vegetables, meat or beans being supplied on an average only eight times a month. Dormitories are in defiance of hygienic rules. In most cases only half to 1 _tsubo_ (4 square yards) are allotted to one person." See also Appendix LXIX.

CHINESE COMPETITION WITH JAPAN [XLIII]. The _Jiji_ called attention in the spring of 1921 to the way in which spinning mills in China were an increasing menace to Japanese industry. There were in China 810,000 spindles under Chinese management, 250,000 under European and 340,000 under Japanese, a total of 1,430,000, which will shortly be increased to 1,150,000 against 3,000,000 in Japan only 1,800,000 of which are at work. The 1919 return was: China, 1,530,000; Japan, 3,200,000.

HOODWINKING THE FOREIGNER [XLIV] In the _Manchester Guardian_ Japan Number, June 9, 1921, the managing director of a leading spinning company, in a page and a half article, states that among the reasons why a large capitalisation is needed by Japanese factories, beyond the fact of higher cost of machinery, is the "special protection needed for Japanese operatives and the special consideration given by the spinners to the happiness and welfare of their operatives." When will Japanese believe their best friends when they tell them that such attempts to hoodwink the foreigner achieve no result but to cover themselves with ridicule?

TOBACCO [XLV]. In 1918-19 there was produced on 24,439 _chō_ 10,308,089 _kwan_ of tobacco. During the same period 9,681,274 _kwan_ were taken by the Government, which paid 19,114,803 yen or 1.974 per _kwan_. In 1919 there was imported leaf tobacco to the value of 5,288,918 yen. Cigarettes to the value of 589,744 yen were exported. The profits of the Tobacco Monopoly, estimated at 71 millions for 1919-20, were estimated at 88 millions for 1920-1.

ELECTORAL OFFENCES [XLVI]. There were candidates at the 1920 election who spent 50,000 yen. It is not uncommon for the number of persons charged with election offences to reach four figures. The qualification for a vote (law of 1918) is the payment of 3 yen of national tax. Under the old law there were about 25 voters per 1,000 inhabitants; now there are 54.

SMALLNESS OF ESTATES [XLVII]. The number of men holding from 5 to 10 _chō_ was, in 1919, 121,141 and between 10 and 50 _chō_, 45,978. The number holding 50 _chō_ (125 acres) and upwards was only 4,226, and 400 or so of these were in Hokkaido. See also Appendix XXXI.

VEGETABLE WAX MAKING [XLVIII]. The wax-tree berries are flailed and then pounded. Next comes boiling. The mush obtained is put into a bag and that bag into a wooden press. The result is wax in its first state. A reboiling follows and then--the discovery of the method was made by a wax manufacturer while washing his hands--a slow dropping of the wax into water. What is taken out of the water is wax in a flaked state. It is dried, melted and poured into moulds. The best berries yield 13 per cent. of fine wax. The variety of wax grown was _oro_ (yellow wax). There is another variety. The sort I saw is grafted at three years with its own variety. The fruitful period lasts for a quarter of a century. Roughly, the yield is 100 _kwan_ per _tan_. Formerly, wax was made from wild trees.

NAMES FOR ETA [XLIX]. Eta (great defilement) is an offensive name. The phrase _tokushu buraku_ (special villages), applied to Eta hamlets, is also objected to. _Heimin_ is the official name, but the Eta are generally termed _shin heimin_ (new common people), which is again regarded as invidiously distinguishing them. The name _chihō_ is now officially proposed for Eta villages. The fact that many Eta have made large sums during the war has somewhat improved the position of their class. Some Eta are well satisfied with their name and freely acknowledge their origin. Year by year intermarriage increases in Japan. A Home Department official has been quoted as saying that in 1918 as many as 450 marriages were registered between Eta and ordinary Japanese.

The population of the village I visited, 1,900 in 300 families, was getting its living as follows: farming 682, trade 185, industry 31, day labour 97, travelling players 180, not reported 180. The Parliamentary voters were 10, prefectural 17, county 19 and village 57. There were 98 ex-soldiers in the community and one man was a member of the local education committee. The birth rate was above the local average. The crimes committed during the year were: theft 2, gambling 2, assault 1, police offences 3. Of the 300 families only one was destitute, and it had been taken care of by the young women's society.

A considerable proportion of the early emigrants to America were Eta. It is now recognised that it was a short-sighted policy on the part of the authorities to allow them to go.

PAPER MAKING [L]. A paper-making outfit may cost from 60 to 70 yen only. The shrubs grown to produce bark for paper making are _kōzo_ (the paper mulberry), _mitsumata_ (_Edgworthia chrysantha_) and _gampi_ (_Wilkstroemia sikokiana_). Someone has also hit on the idea of turning the bark of the ordinary mulberry to use in paper making.

LIBRARIES, THE PRESS AND THE CENSORSHIP [LI]. There are 1,200 libraries in the country with 4 million books and 8 million visitors in the year. About 47,000 books are published in a year, of which less than half, probably, are original works. From one to two hundred are translations, usually condensed translations. The largest number deal with politics. There are about 3,000 newspapers and periodicals. In 1917 some 1,200 issues of newspapers and periodicals attracted the attention of the censor and the sale of 600 books was prohibited. Some sixty foreign books were stopped.

JAPANESE IN BRAZIL [LII]. Emigration to South America has latterly been arrested through the rise in wages at home. During the past four years an average of about 3,000 families has gone every twelve months to Brazil, where about a quarter of a million acres are owned and leased by Japanese. The Japanese Government spends 100,000 yen a year on giving a grant of 50 yen to each emigrating family up to 2,000 in number, through the Overseas Colonisation Company. The Brazilian Government also offers a gratuity.

CATTLE KEEPING IN SOUTH-WESTERN JAPAN [LIII]. Tajima, the old province which comprises about four counties in Tottori, is a large supplier of "Kobe beef," but it is a cattle-feeding not a grazing district. The number of cattle in Hyogo is double the cattle population of Tottori, but no cattle keeper has more than a score of beasts. The usual thing is for farmers to have two or three apiece. Some of the "Kobe beef" comes from the prefectures of Hiroshima and Okayama. It is in the north of Japan, where the people are not so thick on the ground and cultivation is less intense, that cattle production has its best chance.

VALUE OF LAND [LIV]. The value of land in the hill-village in which I stayed necessarily varied, but the average price of paddy was given me as 250 yen per _tan_. Dry land was half that. Open hill land, that is the so-called grass land, might be worth 120 yen. The rise in values which has taken place is illustrated by the following table of farm-land values per _tan_ in 1919, published by the Bank of Japan:

| Paddy | Upland ------------------------------------------------------------ |Good |Ordinary|Bad |Good |Ordinary|Bad ------------------------------------------------------------ Hokkaido |231 |158 |95 |115 |62 |26 {North } |802 |579 |366 |477 |295 |170 Honshu {Tokyo } |863 |607 |406 |673 |442 |272 (main {middle} |1,226 |834 |523 |875 |565 |313 island){west } |1,226 |840 |525 |727 |443 |244 Shikoku |1,120 |784 |470 |752 |450 |225 Kyushu |960 |652 |416 |538 |300 |175 -----------------------------------------------------------

FRUIT PRODUCTION [LV]. The Japanese when they do not eat meat do not feel the need of fruit which is experienced in the West. But there is now a steady increase in the fruit crops. For 1918 the figures were (in thousands of _kwan_): persimmons, 43,620; pears, 27,730; oranges, 73,660; peaches, 12,810; apples, 6,695; grapes, 6,240; plums (largely used pickled), 6,190.

JAPANESE STUDENTS ABROAD [LVI]. During 1921 more than 200 young professors or candidates for professorships were sent to Europe and America by the Ministry of Education. Probably another 300 were studying on funds (£450 for a year plus fares is the grant which is made by the Ministry of Education) supplied by the Ministries of Agriculture, of Railways and of the Army and Navy (often supplemented, no doubt, by money furnished by their families). If to these students are added those sent by independent Universities, institutions, corporations and private firms, the total cannot be fewer than 1,000. The students stay from six months to two or three years, and when they return others take their places. Counting diplomatists, business men, tourists and students there are, of course, more Japanese in Great Britain than there are British in Japan. There are fifteen hundred Japanese in London alone.

TEA PRODUCTION [LVII]. Every prefecture but Aomori produces some tea, but very little is grown in the prefectures of the extreme north. The largest producers are in order: Shidzuoka, Miye, Nara, Kyoto, Kumamoto, Gifu, Kagoshima, Shiga, Saitama, Osaka and Ibariki. In 1919 Shidzuoka produced 4 million _kwan_, valued at nearly 13 million yen. But the statistics of tea production are unsatisfactory. Much tea is produced and sold locally which is unreported. A great deal of this is of inferior quality and produced from half-wild bushes. The 1919 figures are: area, 48,843 _chō_; number of factories, 1,122,164; green tea--_sencha_, 7,205,886 _kwan_; _bancha_, 2,580,035 _kwan; gyokuro_, 75,826 _kwan_; black, 50,756 _kwan_; others, 234,868 _kwan_; _sencha_ dust, 249,862 _kwan_; other dust, 486 _kwan_. Total, 10,397,719 _kwan_; value, 33,377,460 yen. There was exported green tea (pan fired), 12,420,000 yen; green tea (basket fired), 4,575,000 yen; others, 1,405,000 yen. Of this there went to the United States consignments to the value of 15,600,000 yen and to Canada of 1,700,000 yen. In 1918 the export to America was 50,000 tons; in 1919, 30,000; and in 1920, 23,000; and a further decline is expected in 1921. The total exports, which were, in 1909, 62 per cent, of the production, were, in 1918, only 57 per cent, and, in 1919, 37 per cent.

THEINE PERCENTAGES.--The following percentages of theine in black and green tea were furnished me by the Department of Agriculture:

|Green |Green |Black |Oolong |(Basket Fired) |(Pan Fired) | | --------------------------------------------------- Theine |2.81 |2.22 |2.26 |2.35 Tannin |15.08 |14.29 |7.32 |16.15 ---------------------------------------------------

Theine or caffeine is a feathery-looking substance which resembles the material of a silk-worm's cocoon. There is more theine or caffeine in tea leaves than in coffee.

MISTAKES IN CROP STATISTICS [LVIII]. Generally speaking, it may be said that cereals are under-estimated and cocoons over-estimated. Cereals may be 20 per cent. under-estimated. The under-estimation may no doubt be traced back to the time when taxation was on the basis of the grain yield.

OCCUPATIONS FOR THE BLIND [LIX]. A third of the 70,000 sightless are _amma_, about a quarter as many practise acupuncture and the application of the moxa, while nearly the same number are musicians or storytellers. The blind have petitioned the Diet to restrict the calling of _amma_ to men and women who have lost their sight.

WELL SINKING FOR GAS [LX]. The presence of gas, which is odourless, is betrayed by the discoloration of the water from which it emanates and by bubbles.

HEALTH, HEIGHTS AND WEIGHTS OF SCHOOL CHILDREN [LXI]. In 1917-18 the constitutions of 1,193,000 elementary school boys were reported as 53 per cent. robust, 48 per cent. medium and 4 per cent. weak. The constitutions of 1,016,000 elementary school girls were reported 49 per cent. robust, 48 per cent. medium and 3 per cent. weak. Just as women are often underfed in Japan, girls may frequently be less well fed than boys. Elementary school boys of 16 averaged 4.84 _shaku_ in height and 10.85 _kwan_ in weight. The average height and weight of 512 elementary school girls of the same age were 4.71 _shaku_ and 10.83 _kwan_.

HEIGHT AND WEIGHT OF WRESTLERS [LXII]. In a list of ten famous wrestlers the tallest is stated to be 6.30 _shaku_ (a _shaku_ is 11.93 inches) and the heaviest as 33.2 _kwan_ (a _kwan_ is 8.267 lbs.). The average height and weight of these men work out at 5.84 _shaku_ and 28.4 _kwan_. By way of comparison it may be mentioned that the percentage of conscripts in 1918 over 5.5 _shaku_ was 2.58 per cent. The average weight of Japanese is recorded as 13 _kwan_ 830 _momme_.

EXEMPTION FROM AND AVOIDANCE OF CONSCRIPTION [LXIII]. The age is 20 and the service two years (with four years in reserve and ten years depot service). The only son of a parent over 60 unable to support himself or herself is released. Middle school boys' service is postponed till they are 25. Students at higher schools and universities need not serve till 26 or 27. The service of young men abroad (i.e. elsewhere than China) is similarly postponed. (If still abroad at 37, they are entered in territorial army list and exempted.) Young men of education equal to that of middle-school graduates can volunteer for a year and pay 100 yen barracks expenses and be passed out with the rank of non-commissioned officers and be liable thereafter for only two terms of three months in territorial army. There are about half a million youths liable to conscription annually. To this number is to be added about 100,000 postponed cases. (In 1917, 47,324 students, 32,263 abroad, 15,920 whereabouts unknown, 5,069 ill, 3,147 criminal causes, 2,477 absentees, family reasons or crime.) Evasions in 1917: convicted, 234; suspected, 1,582. There are two conscription insurance companies with policies issued for 69 million yen. In one place charms against being conscripted are sold--at a shrine. Desertions in 1916 (7 per cent, officers) 956, of which 258 received more than "light punishment." The conscripts suffering from trachoma were 15.3 per cent. and from venereal diseases 2.2 per cent. Heights (1918): under 5 _shaku_, 10.95 per cent.; 5-5.3 _shaku_, 53.34 per cent.; 5.3-5.5 _shaku_, 33.13 per cent.; above 5.5 _shaku_, 2.58 per cent. In these four classes there was a decrease in height in the first two of .39 per cent. and .57 per cent. respectively and an increase in the second two of .80 per cent. and 15 per cent. respectively.

HOKKAIDO HOLDINGS [LXIV]. There are only 28 holdings of more than 1,000 _chō_, 62 of over 500 _chō_, 161 over 100 _chō_ and 80 over 50 _chō_. These large holdings are used for cattle breeding alone. There are no more than 620 holdings over 20 _chō_ and only 6,756 over 10. The number over 5 _chō_ is 51,877, and over 2 _chō_ 62,015. Under the area of 2 _chō_ there are as many as 40,928. Few of the largest holdings are worked as single farms. They are let in sections to tenants.

CLAUSES IN A TENANT'S CONTRACT [LXV]. (1) The tenant must make at least 1 _chō_ of paddy every year. (2) Rent rice must be the best of the harvest, but the tenant may pay in money. (3) In the following cases the owner will give orders to the tenants: (_a_) If tenants do not use enough manure, (_b_) If there is disease of plants or insect pests, (_c_) If the tenant neglects to mend the road or other necessary work is neglected. (4) The owner will dismiss a tenant: (_a_) If the tenant does not pay his rent without reason, (_b_) If the tenant is neglectful of his work or is idle, (_c_) If the tenant is not obedient to the owner and does not keep this contract faithfully. (_d_) If the tenant is punished by the law. (5) When tenants leave without permission of absence more than twenty days the owner can treat as he will crops or buildings. (6) In the following cases the tenant must provide two labourers to the owner: mending road, drainage canal or bridges; mending water gate and irrigation canal; when necessary public works must be undertaken.

CULTIVATED AREA AND LIVESTOCK [LXVI]. The area of cultivated land in Japan (counting paddy and arable) was, in 1919, 15,179,721 acres (6,071,888 _chō_). The number of animals kept for tillage purposes was 1,199,970 horses and 1,036,020 homed cattle. The total number of horses in the country was only 1,510,626 and of horned cattle, excluding 207,891 returned as "calving" and 12,761 as "deaths," 1,307,120. Sheep, 4,546; goats, 91,777; swine, 398,155. The number of horned cattle slaughtered in the year was 226,108. Some 86,800 horses were also slaughtered. In Great Britain (arable, pasture and grazing area, 63 million acres) there were, in 1919, 11 million cattle, 25 million sheep, 3 million pigs and 1-3/4 million horses.

EGGS AND POULTRY [LXVII]. Even with the assistance of a tariff on Chinese eggs and of a Government poultry yard, which distributes birds and sittings at cost price, there were in 1919 14,105,085 fowls and 11,278,783 chickens. There was an importation of 3-1/2 million "fresh" eggs.

MEAT CONSUMPTION [LXVIII]. The present meat consumption by Japanese is uncertain, for there were in 1920[A] 3,579 foreign residents and 22,104 visitors, and there is an exportation of ham and tinned and potted foods. The number of animals slaughtered in 1918 was: cattle and calves, 226,108; horses, 86,800; sheep and goats, 9,587; swine, 327,074. Someone said to me that "the nutritious flesh of the horse should not be neglected, for the farmer is able to digest tough food."

[Footnote A: In 1921 as many as 24,000 foreigners landed in nine months.]

TUBERCULOSIS IN THE MILLS [LXIX]. When we remember early and mid-Victorian conditions in English mills and the conditions of the sweat shops in New York and other American cities (vide "Susan Lenox"), we shall be less inclined to take a harsh view of industrial Japan during a period of transition. But it is to the interest of the woollen industry no less than that of its workers that the fact should be stated that a competent authority has alleged that 50 per cent. of the employees in the mills suffer from consumption and that many girls sleep ten in a room of only ten-mat size. Improvements have been made lately under the influence of legislation and enlightened self-interest--the president of the largest company is a man of foresight and public spirit--but when I was in Japan, as I recorded in the _New East_ at the time, girls of 13 and 14 were working 11-hour day and night shifts in some mills.

WOOLLEN FACTORIES [LXX]. In the Japanese woollen factory the cost of the hands is low individually, but expensive collectively. An expert suggested that it takes half a dozen of the unskilled girls to do the work of an English mill-girl. It is much the same with male labour. "An English worker may be expected to produce work equal to the output of four Japanese hands." Labour for heads of departments is also difficult to get. There are textile schools and probably a hundred men are graduated yearly. But the men are not all fitted for the jobs which are vacant. Therefore, one finds a man acting as an engineer who, because of his lack of technical experience, is unable to exercise sufficient control over the men in his charge. A curiosity of the industry is the high wages which many men of this sort command. They are really being paid better for inferior work than skilled men in England. The capital of the factories in 1918 was 46-1/2 million yen with 32-3/4 million paid up. Before the War the companies made 8 per cent, as against the 2-1/2 per cent, which contents the English manufacturer, who has often side lines to help his profits. There was more than 100 million yen invested in the woollen textile business, manufacturing and retail. The industry did well during the War by supplies of cloth to Russia and of yarn and muslin to countries which ordinarily are able to supply themselves. In 1918 the production (woollen fabrics and mixtures) was valued at 85 million yen (muslin, 32; cloth, 21; serges, 19; blankets, 3; flannel, 1; others, 8). The imports of wool were 60 million and of yarn 251,000. In 1919 the figures were 61 million and 710,000 respectively. In 1920 the exports were: woollen or worsted yarns, 1,437,926 yen; woollen cloth and serges, 3,019,382 yen; blankets, 1,024,540 yen; other woollens, 548,922 yen. The Nippon Wool Weaving Company, which in 1921 distributed a 20 per cent, ordinary and 20 per cent. extraordinary dividend, has 15 foreign experts.

POPULATION OF HOKKAIDO [LXXI]. In 1869, 58,467; has risen as follows:

Year Population

1874 174,368 1884 276,414 1894 616,650 1904 1,233,669 1914 1,869,582 1919 2,137,700 1920 2,359,097

EXTENSION OF CROP-BEARING AREA OF JAPAN [LXXII]. There is normally added to the crop-bearing area about 53,000 _chō_ (132,000 acres) a year. From the new crop-bearing area every year is deducted the loss of arable land from floods, the extension of cities and towns and railways and the building of factories and institutions. This is reckoned at nearly 8,000 _chō_ in the year. One computation is that there are 2 million _chō_ (5 million acres) available for addition to the crop-bearing area, of which 1 million _chō_ would be convertible into paddies. A decision was taken by the Government in 1919 to bring 250,000 _chō_ under cultivation within nine years from that date, and by 1920 some 20,000 _chō_ had been reclaimed. Persons who reclaim more than 5 _chō_ receive 6 per cent, of their expenditure.

The increase in the area of cultivation has been as follows (in _chō_):

|Year |Paddy |Upland Farm |Total | -------------------------------------------------- |1905 |2,841,471 |2,540,906 |5,382,378 | |1906 |2,849,288 |2,551,170 |5,400,459 | |1907 |2,858,628 |2,639,680 |5,498,309 | |1908 |2,882,426 |2,684,531 |5,566,958 | |1909 |2,902,899 |2,777,453 |5,680,352 | |1910 |2,910,970 |2,804,434 |5,715,405 | |1911 |2,923,520 |2,836,002 |5,759,522 | |1912 |2,939,445 |2,880,301 |5,819,756 | |1913 |2,953,947 |2,902,445 |5,856,392 | |1914 |2,961,639 |2,916,569 |5,878,208 | |1915 |2,974,042 |2,948,075 |5,922,118 | |1916 |2,987,579 |2,971,800 |5,959,379 | |1917 |3,005,679 |3,012,685 |6,018,364 | |1918 |3,011,000 |3,070,000 |6,081,000 | |1919 |3,021,879 |3,050,008 |6,071,887 |

Whereas the percentage of cultivated land to uncultivated was in 1909 14.6 per cent., it was in 1918 15.6 per cent.

USE TO WHICH THE LAND IS PUT [LXXIII]. Here are the details of the division of the land in 1909 and 1918:

Division of the Land | Years | Area in _chō_ | Percentage of | | in 000 's | Total Area ------------------------|--------|----------------|-------------- Total area | 1909 | 38,847 | 100.0 | 1918 | 38,864 | 100.0 | | | Paddy fields | 1909 | 2,903 | 7.5 | 1918 | 3,011 | 7.7 | | | Upland fields | 1909 | 2,777 | 7.1 | | 3,070 | 7.9 | | | Total arable as above | 1909 | 5,680 | 14.6 | 1918 | 6,081 | 15.6 | | | Meadows and pastures | 1909 | 39 | 0.1 | 1918 | 43 | 0.1 | | | Grass lands and heather | 1909 | 1,941 | 5.0 (excluding pastures) | 1918 | 3,509 | 9.0 | | | Forests | 1909 | 22,072 | 56.8 | 1918 | 18,783 | 48.3 | | | Dwellings, factories, | 1909 | 9,115 | 23.5 roads, railways, | 1918 | 10,448 | 27.0 institutions, etc. | | | ------------------------|--------|----------------|--------------

Radish (1917), 576,746,000 _kwan_; taro (1917), 159,168,000 _kwan_; burdock (1917), 43,424,000 _kwan_; turnip (1917), 41,527,000 _kwan_; onion (1917), 37,601,000 _kwan_; carrot (1917), 26,976,000 _kwan_; cabbage (1917); 19,951,000 _kwan_; wax-tree seed (1918), 13,761,000 _kwan_; rush for matting, (1918), 10,442,000 _kwan_; flax (1918), 17,300,000 _kwan_; ginger (1918), 8,189,000 _kwan_; paper mulberry (1918), 6,964,000 _kwan_; peppermint (1918), 3,380,000 _kwan_; lily (1917), 682,000 _kwan_; chillies (1918), 441,000 _kwan_.

EMIGRANTS AND RESIDENTS ABROAD (LXXIV). The latest official figures as to Japanese resident abroad, supplied in 1921 and probably gathered in 1920, are:

Asia China 200,740 Kwantung 79,307 Tsingtao 23,555 Philippines 11,156 Strait Settlements 10,828 Russian Asia 7,028 Dutch India 4,436 Hongkong 3,083 India 1,278 Burma 680 Indo-China 371

Europe England 1,638 Germany 409 Holland 375 France 342 Switzerland 87 Italy 34 Belgium 12 Sweden 10

North America U.S.A. 115,186 Hawaii 112,221 Canada 17,716 Mexico 2,198 Panama 225

South America Brazil 34,258 Peru 10,102 Argentine 1,958 Chile 484 Bolivia 145

Africa South Africa 38 Egypt 35

Oceania Australia 5,274 South Seas 3,399

Total 648,915

(The comparable return for 1918 was 493,845.) It has been suggested that these official statistics are incomplete; 7,000 as the number of Japanese in Russian territory seems low. Even during the War, in 1917, passports were issued to 62,000 Japanese going abroad. Of these, according to the _Japan Year-book_, 23,000 were made out for Siberia. Professor Shiga has stated that "no small number" of Japanese leave their country as stowaways.

RISE IN PRODUCTION PER "TAN" OF PADDY [LXXV]. The 3 or 4 _koku_ is reached in favourable circumstances only. The average is far below this, but it rises, as shown in Appendix XV.

Between 1887 and 1915 the area under barley and wheat rose from 1,591,000 _chō_ to 1,812,000 _chō_, the yield from 15,822,000 _koku_ to 23,781,000 _koku_ and the yield per _tan_ from .994 _koku_ to 1.313. Between 1882 and 1914 the increase in the crops of the three varieties of millet averaged .515 _koku_ per _tan_. The increased yield of soy beans was .229 _koku_ per _tan_, of sweet potatoes 138 _kwamme_ per _tan_ and of Irish potatoes 138 _kwamme_.

LABOURERS [LXXVI]. When hired labour is required on farms it is supplied either by relatives and neighbours or by the surplus labour of strangers who are small farmers or members of a small farmer's family. According to the Department of Agriculture: "Ordinary fixed employees are upon an equal social footing. Apprentice labourers are very numerous. No working class holds a special social position as such. This is the greatest point of difference between the Japanese agricultural labour situation and that of Europe." The number of labourers in October 1920 was:

| Day | Seasonal| All the | | |year round| Total ---------------------------|-----------|---------|----------|--------- Labourers living { male | 119,676 | 52,007 | 49,110 | 220,793 solely on wages, { female | 80,870 | 42,193 | 23,862 | 146,925 agricultural and { | | | | other { | 200,546 | 94,200 | 72,972 | 367,718 | | | | | | | | Labourers who are { male | 949,266 | 407,596 | 188,369 | 1,546,231 labourers part { female | 646,720 | 405,131 | 116,152 | 1,168,003 of their time | | | | | 1,595,986 | 813,727 | 304,521 | 2,714,234 | | | | Total . . . . . | 1,796,532 | 907,927 | 377,493 | 3,081,952 -----------------------------------------------------------------------

In addition to the total of 3,081,952 "there are 32,973 agricultural labourers who are boys and girls under 14."

DECREASE OF FARMERS TILLING THEIR OWN LAND [LXXVII]. In 1914 the number of farmers owning their own land was 1,731,247; in 1919 it had fallen to 1,700,747. In 1914 the number of tenants was 1,520,476; in 1919 it had increased to 1,545,639. That is, there were 30,500 fewer landowners and 25,163 more tenants. During the period between 1914 and 1919 the number of farmers (landowners and tenants) increased 30,293. While from 1909 to 1914 the percentage of landowners fell from 33.27 to 31.73, the percentage of tenant farmers rose from 27.69 to 27.87 and the percentage of persons partly owner and partly tenant from 39.04 to 40.40. See Appendix XXXIV.

RURAL AND URBAN POPULATIONS [LXXVIII]. The following table shows the percentage of the population living in communes under 5,000 and 10,000 inhabitants in 1913 and 1918:

Year | Percentage of Population living in | Percentage of Families | Communities | engaged in Agricultural |------------------------------------| to Total Families in | under 5,000 | under 10,000 | Japan Proper ------|---------------|--------------------|------------------------ 1913 | 50.44 | 72.39 | 57.6 1918 | 46.23 | 67.71 | 52.3 ------|---------------|--------------------|------------------------ | -4.21 | -4.68 | -5.3 --------------------------------------------------------------------

These figures clearly indicate the decrease of the rural population. To take 10,000 inhabitants as the demarcation line between urban and rural population is probably less correct than to take a demarcation line of 7,500 inhabitants. A mean of the two percentages of populations living in communities under 5,000 and under 10,000 inhabitants shows 61.41 per cent, in 1913 and 56.97 per cent, in 1918, a decrease of 4.44 per cent. The variation between this result and the preceding one has a simple explanation. About 30 per cent, of the families engaged in agriculture carry on their farming as an accessory business. Teachers, priests and mechanics may all have patches of land. On the other hand, a small number of people have no land. Therefore, the percentage of the rural population is only slightly higher than that of the families engaged in agriculture. In 1918 there were 5,476,784 farming families (to 10,460,440 total families or 52.3 per cent.), and if we multiply by 5-1/3--the average number of persons per family in Japan is 5.317 (1918)--to find the population dependent on agriculture, the number is 29,209,514. The total population of Japan in 1918 was 55,667,711. The Department of Agriculture has stated that on the basis of the census of 1918 the number of persons in households engaged in agriculture was 52 per cent. of the population. According to one set of statistics the percentage of farming families to non-farming families fell from 64 per cent, in 1904 to 60.3 per cent. in 1910 and 56 in 1914. We shall probably not be far wrong in supposing the rural population to be at present about 55 per cent, of the population. The percentage of persons actually working on the farms is another matter. As has been seen, some 30 per cent, of the 5-1/2 million farming families are engaged in agriculture as a secondary business only. It may be, therefore, that the 5-1/2 million families do not actually yield more than 10 million effective farm hands.

IS RICE THE RIGHT CROP FOR JAPAN [LXXIX]. Mr. Katsuro Hara, of the College of Literature, Kyoto University, asks, "Is Japan specially adapted for the production of rice?" and answers: "Southern Japan is of course not unfit. But rice does not conform to the climate of northern Japan. This explains the reason why there have been repeated famines. By the choice of this uncertain kind of crop as the principal foodstuff the Japanese have been obliged to acquiesce in a comparatively enhanced cost of living. The tardiness of civilisation may be perhaps partly attributed to this fact. Why did our forefathers prefer rice to other cereals? Was a choice made in Japan? If the choice was made in this country the unwisdom of the choice and of the choosers is now very patent."

Along with this expression of opinion may be set the following figures, showing the total production of rice and of other grain crops during the past six years, in thousands of _koku_:

|----------|---------------|--------|-------------|-------- Year | Barley | Naked Barley | Wheat | Barley and | Rice | | | | Wheat | ---------|----------|---------------|--------|-------------|-------- 1915 | 10,253 | 8,296 | 5,231 | 23,781 | 55,924 1916 | 9,559 | 7,921 | 5,869 | 23,350 | 58,442 1917 | 9,169 | 8,197 | 6,786 | 24,155 | 54,658 1918 | 8,368 | 7,777 | 6,431 | 22,576 | 54,699 1919 | 9,664 | 7,995 | 5,611 | 23,271 | 60,818 ---------|----------|---------------|--------|-------------|--------

From 1910 to 1919 the areas under barleys and wheat were, in _chō_, 1,771,655-1,729,148, and under rice 2,949,440-3,104,611.

INNER COLONISATION _v_. FOREIGN EXPANSION [LXXX]. _An Introduction to the History of Japan_ (1921), written by an Imperial University professor and published by the Yamato Society, the members of which include some of the most distinguished men in Japan, says: "It is doubtful whether the backwardness of the north can be solely attributed to its climatic inferiority. Even in the depth of winter the cold in the northern provinces cannot be said to be more unbearable than that of the Scandinavian countries or of north-eastern Germany. The principal cause of the retardation of progress in northern Japan lies rather in the fact that it is comparatively recently exploited.... The northern provinces might have become far more populous, civilised and prosperous than we see them now. Unfortunately for the north, just at the most critical time in its development the attention of the nation was compelled to turn from inner colonisation to foreign relations. The subsequent acquisition of dominions oversea made the nation still more indifferent."

According to a report of the Hokkaido Government in 1921, the number of immigrants during the latest three year period was 90,000, and one and a half million acres are available for cultivation and improvement.

AGRICULTURE _v_. COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY [LXXXI]. There is supposed to be more money invested in land than in commerce or industry. Comprehensive figures of a trustworthy kind establishing the relative importance of agriculture, commerce and industry are not readily obtained. "This is a question," writes a Japanese professor of agriculture to me, "which we should like to study very much." Industrial and commercial figures at the end of and immediately after the War are not of much use because of the inflation of that period. The annual value of agricultural production before the War was about 1,800 million yen; it must be by now about 2,500 or 3,000. In 1912, according to the Department of Finance, the debt of the agricultural population was 740 million yen. In 1916 the Japan Mortgage Bank and the prefectural agricultural and industrial banks had together advanced to agricultural organisations 110 millions and to other borrowers 273 millions. In 1915 co-operative credit associations had advanced 45 millions to farmers and 11 millions to other borrowers. The paid-up capital of companies, was, in 1913, 1,983 million, of which 27 million was agricultural, and in 1916, 2,434 million, of which 31 million was agricultural. The reserves were, in 1913, 542 million, of which 1 million was agricultural, and in 1916, 841 million, of which 3 were agricultural. (For some reason or other, "fishing" is included under "agricultural." On careful dissection I find that of the 45 million of investments credited to agriculture in 1918, only 28 million are purely agricultural.) The land tax is estimated to yield 73 million yen in 1920-1. It is 2-1/2 per cent. on residential land, 4.5 per cent. on paddy and cultivated land--3.2 per cent, in Hokkaido--and 5.5 per cent. on other land--4 per cent. in Hokkaido.

INDEX

_This Index may be regarded as a Glossary inasmuch as every Japanese word which occurs in the book will be found in it. The meaning is usually given on the page the number of which comes first._

132 (2) _signifies that there are two references on page 132 to the subject indexed._

_Such subjects as Agriculture, Hokkaido, Labour, Paddies, Rice and Sericulture are indexed at length, but some matters which relate to them and are of general interest appear in the body of the Index._

Abbot and Ronin 333

Abiko 105

Ability 66

Abortion 65, 303; Abortifacient 332

Abroad, first, 235

Accommodation with the West 363

Acreage, see Agriculture

Acting 115 (2), 320

Adjustment 85, 186, 194, 197, 210, 232, 365, 370, 380; Cost 72; Cottages 72; Graves 72; Method and Results 71-2; Statistics 72

Admonition, see Police, 54

Adoption 21, 328

Adulteration 356

Æ 99, 321

Aerated waters 119

Aeroplanes 31

Aestheticism 203

Affection, Question by a Japanese, 144

Affinity 272

Afforestation, see Deforestation, Floods, Tree planting; 23, 92-3, 97, 152, 177, 194, 197, 228, 233, 240, 260, 318, 370

Africa 410

Agriculture, see Adjustment, Animals under different names, Area, Cattle, Crops under different names, Cultivation, Farmers, Grain, Hokkaido, Implements under different names, Land new, Land available, Land utilised, Manure, Milk, Paddies, Peasant Proprietors, Tenants, Tools, Rice and other crops, Sericulture, Upland; Advantages 365, 367; Accessory business 412; American, proposed study of, vii; Arable 409, (British) 385; Areas 394, 400, quarter acre 89, one and a quarter acre to five acres 89, two 210, two and a half 9, 284, three 10, five 284, seven and a half 89, 373, ten 10, twelve and a half 207, fifteen 10, twenty-five 213, one _tan_ 232, five 184, six 302, eight 304, 383, twelve 270, fifteen and a half 373, one _chō_ 220, 304, 377 (3), 379, 380, 385, one and a half 379, two 380, two and a half, see Hokkaido, three 373, 380, four 10, four to four and a half 338, four to five 207, five 310, 337-8, seven 10, 338, 373, eight 310, 373, ten 28, ten to fifteen 28, 338, thirty 338, sixty-two 374; Associations against landlords 88;