On my journey north from Sapporo the first thing which brought home to me the colonial character of the agriculture was the tree stumps sticking up in the paddies. The second was the extent to which the rivers were still uncontrolled. The longest river in Japan, 260 miles long, is in Hokkaido. There was obviously a vast moorland area in need of draining. Peat—there are 300,000 cho of it—may be a standby when the waste of timber that is going on brings about a shortage of fuel other than coal. From poor peat soil, which was growing oats, buckwheat and millet, we passed to land capable of producing rice, and saw ploughing with horses. One region had been opened for only twenty years, but already the farmers had cultivated the hillsides in the assiduous fashion of Old Japan.

From Ashigawa we made some excursions in a prim basha to places which were always several miles farther on than they were supposed to be and were usually reached by tracks covered with stones from 6 to 9 ins. long and having ruts a foot deep.

We visited a large estate with 350 tenants who were mostly working 2-1/2 cho, though some had twice as much. Nearly all of these tenants appeared to have one or two horses, although the estate manager had advised them to use oxen or cows as more economical draught animals. When I remembered the distance the farmers were from the town and the state of the roads, and noticed the satisfaction which the men we passed displayed in being able to ride, it was easy to believe that the possession of a horse might have its value as a means of social progress. During the last ten years half the tenants had made enough to enable them to buy farms. The tenants on this estate had two temples and one shrine.[246]

I visited a fifteen-years-old co-operative alcohol factory with a capital of 300,000 yen. Of its materials 80 per cent. seemed to be potato starch waste and 20 per cent. maize. The product was 6,000 or 7,000 koku of alcohol. The dividend was 8 per cent. On the waste a large number of pigs was fed. The animals were kept in pens with boarded floors within a small area, and I was not surprised to learn that three or four died every month. Starch making, which produces the waste used by the alcohol factory, is managed on quite a small scale. An outfit may cost no more than 30 or 50 yen. I went over a small peppermint-making plant. Most of the peppermint raised in Japan—it reaches a value of 2 million yen—is grown in Hokkaido.

One day in the eastern part of the island I met in a small hotel, which was run by a man and his wife who had been in America, several old farmers who had obviously made money. They declared that formerly only 20 per cent. of the colonists succeeded, but now the proportion was more than 65 per cent. I imagine that they meant by success that the colonists did really well, for it was added that it was rare in that district for people to return to Old Japan. One of the company said that not more than 5 per cent. returned. "Land is too expensive at home," he continued; "when a Japanese comes here and gets some, he works hard." A good man, they said, should make, after four or five years, 70 to 100 yen clear profit in a year.

I rather suspect that the men I talked with had made some of their money by advancing funds to their neighbours on mortgage. They all seemed to own several farms. When I asked how religion prospered in Hokkaido they said with a smile, "There are many things to do here, so there is no spare time for religion as in our native places." There is a larger proportion of Christians in Hokkaido than on the mainland. One village of a thousand inhabitants contained two churches and a Salvation Army barracks. It was reputed, also, to have eight or ten "waitresses" and five sake shops. It is said that a good deal of shochu, which is stronger than sake, is drunk.

The roughest basha ride I made was to a place seven miles from railhead in the extreme north-east. Such roads as we adventured by are little more than tracks with ditches on either side. The journey back, because there were no horses to ride, we made in a narrow but extraordinarily heavy farm wagon with wheels a foot wide and drawn by a stallion. Shortly after starting there was a terrific thunderstorm which soaked us and hastened uncomfortably the pace of the animal in the shafts. When the worst of the downpour was over, and we had faced the prospect of slithering about the wagon for the rest of the journey, for the stallion had decided to hurry, a farmer's wife asked us for a lift and clambered in with agility. My companion and I were then sitting in a soggy state with our backs against the wagon front and our legs outstretched resignedly. The cheery farmer's wife, who was wet too, plopped down between us and, as the bumps came, gripped one of my legs with much good fellowship. She was a godsend by reason of her plumpness, for we were now wedged so tight that we no longer rocked and pitched about the wagon at each jolt. And no doubt we dried more quickly. Providence had indeed been good to us, for shortly afterwards we passed, lying on its side in a spruit, the basha that had carried us on our outward journey.

We were three hours in all in the wagon. Our passenger told us that her husband had several farms and that they were very comfortably off and very glad that they had come to Hokkaido. When the farmer's wife had to alight a mile from our destination we chose to walk. Bad roads are a serious problem for the Hokkaido farmer. In one district, only fifteen miles from the capital, they are so bad that rice is at half the price it makes in Sapporo. It is unfortunate that the roads are at their worst in autumn and spring when the farmer wants to transport his produce.

I visited the 700-acre settlement which Mr. Tomeoka has opened in connection with his Tokyo institution for the reclamation of young wastrels. His formula is, "Feed them well, work them hard and give them enough sleep." Among the volumes on his shelves there were three books about Tolstoy and another three, one English, one American and one German, all bearing the same title, The Social Question. Needless to say that Self-Help had its place.

I liked Mr. Tomeoka's idea of an open-air chapel on a tree-shaded height from which there was a fine view. It reminded me of the view from an open space on rising ground near the famous Danish rural high school of Askov, from which, on Sundays, parties of excursionists used to look down enviously on Slesvig and irritate the Germans by singing Danish national songs. Mr. Tomeoka believed in better houses and better food for farmers and in money raised by means of the ko—"the rules and regulations of co-operative societies are too complicated for farmers to understand."

I saw the huts of some settlers who had weathered their first Hokkaido winter. Buckwheat, scratched in in open spaces among the trees, was the chief crop. The huts consisted of one room. Most of the floor was raised above the ground and covered with rough straw matting. In the centre of the platform was the usual fire-hole. The walls were matting and brushwood. I was assured that "the snow and good fires, for which there is unlimited fuel, keep the huts warm."

The railway winds through high hills and makes sharp curves and steep ascents and descents. There are tracts of rolling country under rough grass. Sometimes these areas have been cleared by forest fires started by lightning. Wide spaces are a great change from the scenery of closely farmed Japan. The thing that makes the hillsides different from our wilder English and Scottish hillsides is that there are neither sheep nor cattle on them.

When the culpable destruction of timber in Hokkaido is added to what has been lost by forest fires, due to lightning or to accident—one conflagration was more than 200 acres in extent—it is easy to realise that the rivers are bringing far more water and detritus from the hills than they ought to do and are preparing flood problems with which it will cost millions to cope when the country gets more closely settled. It is deplorable that, apart from needless burning on the hillsides, the farmers have not been dissuaded from completely clearing their arable land of trees. On many holdings there is not even a clump left to shelter the farmhouse and buildings. In not a few districts the colonists have created treeless plains. In place after place the once beautiful countryside is now ugly and depressing.

FOOTNOTES:

[232] The word used by people in Hokkaido for the main island, Hondo or Honshu (Hon, main; do or shu, land), is Naichi (interior).

[233] From Aomori on the mainland to Hakodate in Hokkaido is a 50-miles sea trip. Then comes a long night journey to Sapporo, during which one passes between two active volcanoes. The sea trip is 50 miles because a large part of the route taken by the steamer is through Aomori Bay. The nearest part of Hokkaido to the mainland is a little less than the distance between Dover and Calais.

[234] Foreigners sometimes confound Yezo (Hokkaido) with Yedo, the old name for Tokyo.

[235] A sixth of Hokkaido still belongs to the Imperial Household. In 1918 it decided to sell forest and other land (parts of Japan not stated) to the value of 100 million yen. In 1917 the Imperial estates were estimated at 18-3/4 million cho of forest and 22-1/4 million cho of "plains," that is tracts which are not timbered nor cultivated nor built on.

[236] In 1919 it was 2,137,700.

[237] Considerations of space compel the holding over of a chapter on the Ainu for another volume.

[238] Of the 96 foreign instructors in institutions "under the direct control" of the Tokyo Department of Education in 1917-18, there were 27 British, 22 German, 19 American and 12 French.

[239] Hokkaido is one of five Imperial universities. There are in addition several well-known private universities.

[240] Grouse are also to be found in Hokkaido, but no pheasants and no monkeys. The deep Tsugaru Strait marks an ancient geological division between Hokkaido and the mainland.

[241] It is sometimes eaten, ground to a rough meal, with rice. The argument is that maize is two thirds the price of rice and more easily digested.

[242] See Appendix XXXVII.

[243] The latest figures for Hokkaido show only a tenth.

[244] For farmers' incomes, see Appendix XIII.

[245] For sizes of farms, see Appendix LXIV.

[246] For a tenant's contract, see Appendix LXV.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

SHALL THE JAPANESE EAT BREAD AND MEAT?

Bon yori shoko (Proof, not argument)

One day in Tokyo I heard a Japanese who was looking at a photograph of a British woman War-worker feeding pigs ask if the animals were sheep. Sheep are so rare in Japan that an old ram has been exhibited at a country fair as a lion. In contrast with Western agriculture based on live stock we have in Japan an agriculture based on rice.[247] But a section of the Japanese agricultural world turns its eyes longingly to mixed farming, and so, when I returned to Sapporo from my trip to the north of Hokkaido, I was taken to see a Government stock farm—with a smoking volcano in the background. Hokkaido has four other official farms, one belonging to the Government and one for raising horses for the army. I was shown, in addition to horses, Ayrshire, Holstein and Brown Swiss cattle, Berkshire and Yorkshire pigs and Southdown and Shropshire sheep in good buildings. I noticed two self-binders and a hay loader and I beheld for the first time in Japan a dairymaid and collies—one was of a useless show type.

The extent to which the knack of looking after animals and a liking for them can be developed is an interesting question. Experts in stock-keeping with generations of experience behind them will agree that it is on the answer to this question that the success or non-success of the Japanese in animal industry in no small measure depends.

I have a note of a discussion on the general treatment of domestic animals in Japan in the course of which it was admitted that they were "certainly not treated as well as in most parts of Europe, or as in China." One reason given was that "most sects believe in the reincarnation of the wicked in the form of animals." The freedom which dogs enjoyed in English houses seemed strange; my friends no doubt forgot that Western houses have no tatami to be preserved. It was contended, however, that cavalry soldiers "often weep on parting from their horses" and that "people with knowledge of animals are fond of them." I have myself seen farmers' wives in tears at a horse fair when the foals they had reared were to be sold and the animals in their timidity nuzzled them. Westerners who are familiar with the exquisite and humoursome studies of animal, bird and insect life by Japanese artists of the past and present day,[248] are in no doubt that such work was prompted by real knowledge and love of the "lower creation." The Japanese have a keen appreciation of the "song" of an amazing variety of "musical" insects—there are 20,000 kinds of insects. It is an appreciation not vouchsafed to the foreigner whose nerves are racked by the insistent bizz of the semi or cicada—there are 38 kinds of cicada. Everyone will recall Hearn's chapter on the trade in "singing insects."

One of my hosts in Aichi had two tiny cages which each contained one of these creatures. The cages were hung from the eaves. In the evening when the stone lantern in the garden was lit, and it was desired to give an illusion of greater coolness after a hot day a servant was sent up to the roof to pour down a tubful of water in order to produce the dripping sound of rain; and this at once set the caged insects chirping.

The sensitive foreigner is distressed by the way in which newly born puppies and kittens are thrown out to die because their Buddhist owners are too scrupulous to kill them. The stranger's feelings are also worked on by the unhappy demeanour and uncared-for look of dogs and cats. On chancing to enter in a Japanese city an English home where there were three dogs I could not but mark how they contrasted in bearing and appearance with the generality of the animals I had seen. Yet these dogs were all mongrel foundlings which had been abandoned near my friend's house or dropped into her garden. No doubt most Japanese dogs suffer from having too much rice—and polished at that—and practically no bones. An excuse for the neglect of cats is that they scratch woodwork and tatami and insist on carrying their food into the best room.

Horses are often overloaded and mercilessly driven on hilly roads.[249] On the other hand, carters lead their horses. It might be added that the coolies who haul and push handcarts bearing enormous loads never spare themselves. I was told more than once of people who had been too tenderhearted to make an end of old horses. I also heard of hens which had been allowed to live on until they died of old age. In some mountain communities it is the custom, when a chicken must be killed for a visitor's meal, for an exchange of birds to be made with a neighbour in order that the killing may not be too painful for the owner.[250]

Except in hotels and stores in Tokyo and the cities which cater for foreigners, one seldom sees such an animal product as cheese. On the Government farm I found excellent cheese and butter being made. Untravelled Japanese have the dislike of the smell of cheese that Western people have of the stench of boiling daikon. Nor is cheese the only alien food with which the ordinary Japanese has a difficulty. The smell of mutton is repugnant to him and he has yet to acquire a taste for milk. The demand for milk is increasing, however. The guide books are quite out of date. Nearly all the milk ordinarily sold for foreigners and invalids is supplied sterilised in bottles. On the platforms of the larger railway stations bottles of milk are vended from a copper container holding hot water. In places where I have been able to obtain bread I have usually had no difficulty in getting milk. (The word for bread, pan, has been in the language since the coming of the Portuguese, and all over Japan one finds sponge cake, kasutera, a word from the Spanish.) Butter in country hotels is usually rancid, for the reason, I imagine, that it is carelessly handled and kept too long and that few Japanese know the taste of good butter. The development of a liking for bread and butter is obviously one of the conditions of the establishment of a successful animal industry. Condensed milk is sold in large quantities, but chiefly to supplement infants' supplies and to make sweetstuff. The 1919 production was estimated at 57 million tins.

One argument for an animal industry is that with an increasing population the fish supply will not go so far as it has done. It is said that fish are not to be found in as large quantities as formerly. Another argument is that the national imports include many products of animal industry which might be advantageously produced at home. Not only is more milk, condensed and fresh, being consumed: with the adoption of foreign clothes in professional and business life and in the army and navy, more and more wool is being worn[251] and more and more leather is needed for the boots which are being substituted for geta and also for service requirements. It is contended that for the emancipation of Japanese agriculture from the petite culture stage it is essential that a larger number of draught oxen and horses shall be used. It is equally important, it is suggested, that more manure shall be made on the farms, so that a limit shall be placed on the outlay on imported fertilisers. Finally there are those who urge that the Japanese should be better fed and that better feeding can only be brought about by an increased consumption of animal products.[252]

The possibilities of outdoor stock keeping in Hokkaido are limited by the fact that snow lies from November to the middle of February and in the north of the island to the end of March. A high agricultural authority did not think that the number of cattle in all Japan could be raised to more than two million within twenty years.[253]

In the management of sheep—there were about 5,000 in the whole country when I was in Hokkaido—there has been failure after failure, but it is held that the prospects for sheep in Hokkaido are promising. (The question is discussed in the next Chapter.) At present, owing to the lack of a market for mutton, pigs, which used to be kept in the days before Buddhism exerted its influence, seem more attractive to experimenting farmers than sheep. No one has proposed that sheep should be kept in ones and twos for milking as in Holland.[254] When milk is needed it is said that goats, of which there are more than 90,000 in Japan, are desirable stock, but I doubt whether more than 500 of these goats are milked.[255] They are kept to produce meat. Some people hope that those who eat goat's flesh will come to realise the superiority of mutton.

The case for pigs is that sweet potatoes and squash can be fed to them, that they produce frequent litters, that pork is more and more appreciated, and that there are 300,000 of them in the country already. Some confident experts who have possibly been influenced by the large consumption of pork in China argue that pork may become equally popular in Japan. There are two bacon factories not far from Tokyo.

As in other countries, the argument for doing away with foreign imports is pushed in Japan to ridiculous lengths. Japan, which aims above all at being an exporting country, cannot attain her desire without receiving imports to pay for her exports.[256] The physiological argument for an animal industry is unconvincing. The Japanese have a long dietetic history as vegetarians who eat a little fish and a few eggs. There exists in Japan an exceptionally ingenious variety of nitrogenous foods derived from the vegetable kingdom, and the Japanese have become accustomed to digest vegetable protein.[257] It might be suggested, with some show of reason, that in this matter of the adoption of a meat dietary the Japanese are once more under the influence of foreign ideas which are a little out of date.[258] In Europe and America there is evidence of a decreasing meat consumption among educated people, and medical papers are full of counsels to diminish the amount of meat consumed. There is also in the West an increasing sensitiveness to the horrors inflicted on animals in transportation by rail and steamer, and if an animal industry were established in Japan there would certainly be a great deal of transportation by rail and steamer from the breeding to the rearing districts, and from these districts to the slaughtering centres. If the present advocacy of an animal industry for Japan should triumph over the reluctance to take animal life inculcated by Buddhism it is hardly likely to be regarded in the West as a forward step in the ethical evolution of the Japanese.[259]

I had the good fortune to meet in Sapporo a man who has made a special study of the food of the Japanese people, Professor Morimoto of the University. He said that he had no doubt that when the Japanese began to eat bread instead of rice they would develop a taste for meat as well as butter. With great kindness he placed at my disposal statistics which he afterwards expanded in a thesis for Johns Hopkins University. He had investigated the dietary of the families of 200 tenants of the University farms. Reduced to terms of men per day the result was:

Sen. Sen. Rice (1.95 go) 4.2 Vegetables 2.2 (Naked) barley (3.45 go) 3.3 Pickles[260] .6 Fish 1.0 Sake .08 Miso .7 Sugar .02 Shoyu (soy) .03 ——— 12.13

Or at Tokyo prices, 14.3 sen. On averaging, in terms of per man per day, the food and drink consumption of all Japan, Professor Morimoto found the result to be:

Sen. Sen. Grain 6.60 Fruits .40 Legumes .39 Sugar .53 Vegetables 2.00 Salt .20 Fish and seaweeds .54 Tea .10 Beef and veal .10 } Alcoholic Other animal food .03 } liquor 1.50 Chicken .03 } .33 Tobacco .45 Eggs .13 } Milk .04 } ——- 13.04[261]

The Professor compares with these totals the 34.4 sen and 39.3 sen per day which seem to represent the cost of the food of the rank and file in the navy and army, and three standards of diet issued by the official Bureau of Hygiene providing for expenditures of 32.1 sen, 33 sen and 44.4 sen respectively. (All the prices I have cited are dated 1915.) Beef and pork as well as fish are used in the army and navy. The navy also uses bread.

Professor Morimoto estimates that a Japanese may be fairly expected to consume only 80 per cent. of what a foreigner needs, for the average weight of Japanese is only 13 kwan 830 momme to the European's 17 kwan 20 momme.

My personal impression, which I give merely for what it is worth, for I have made no investigation of the subject, is that, though Japanese may thrive on meagre fare, they eat large quantities of food when their resources permit of indulgence. The common ailment seems to be "stomach ache." This may be due to eating at irregular hours, to an unbalanced dietary, to the eating of undercooked viands or to occasional over-eating, or to all of these causes.[262] Undoubtedly there is much room for dietetic reform.

Professor Morimoto had come to the conclusion "that there is under-feeding, largely due to a bad choice of foods, that the relation of the nutritive value of foods to their cost is insufficiently studied and that cooking can be improved." It is of course an old criticism of the Japanese table that food is either imperfectly cooked or prepared too much with a view to appearance. The Professor's finding was that the Japanese need the addition of meat and bread to their dietary. As far as meat is concerned he did not convince me. Let me quote him on the soy bean: "It is a remarkably good substitute for meat. It is very low in price but its nutritive value is very high. The essential element of miso, tofu and shoyu is soy bean." Bread is another matter. The Japanese Navy, presumably because it may find itself far from Japan, has accustomed its sailors to eat bread, and a case can certainly be made out for the general population not relying on rice as a grain food. But, as the large quantities of barley eaten show, there is no such reliance now. Morimoto urged that while there might be no difference in the nutritive value of wheat and rice, rice as usually eaten induced "abnormal distension of the stomach and poor nutrition." Again, wheat was a world crop,[263] whereas rice, owing to the Japanese objection to foreign rice, was a local crop. If the Japanese were users of wheat as well as of rice they would not have to pay so much for food, when, on the failure of the rice crop in considerable parts of Japan, the price of rice was high. "The consumption is about 10 million bushels more than the production." Further, rice was more costly in cultivation than wheat, and its production could not be increased so as to keep pace with the increase in population. The yield, which was 46 million koku in 1904, was only 50 millions in 1912; and 65 millions in 1927 seemed an excessive estimate. In 1912 the importation of rice was 2 million koku. But on all these points the reader should take note of the data on page 84 and in Appendices XXIV and XXV.

The Professor's concluding point against rice was that it was expensive to prepare. The washing of the rice in a succession of waters and the cleaning of the sticky pot in which it was cooked and of the equally sticky tub in which it was served took a great deal of time. Then in order to cook rice properly—and the Japanese have become connoisseurs—the exact proportion of water must be gauged. The supplies of rice to be cooked were so considerable that the name of the servant lass was "girl to boil the rice." But when bread was used instead of rice, said the Professor jubilantly, a baking twice a week would do. Why, an hour a day might be saved, which in twenty years would be 73,000 hours, or a whole year, and, reckoning women's labour as worth 5 sen an hour, that would be a saving of 565 yen!

FOOTNOTES:

[247] For statistics of cultivated area and live stock, see Appendix LXVI.

[248] One thinks of Takeuchi Seiho who lives in Kyoto, of Toba Sojo (11th century) for monkeys, frogs and bullocks, and in the Tokugawa period of Okio for dogs and carp, of Jakchu for fowls and birds, of Hasegawa Tohaku and Sosen for monkeys, of Kawanabe Kyosai for crows, and of Kesai and Hokusai for birds, fish and insects.

[249] Nevertheless it is well not to be hasty in judgment. On the day on which this footnote was written, April 7, 1921, I find the following items in the Daily Mail. On page 4 the Attorney-General regrets that the law tolerates the "cruel practice" by which 30 pigeons were killed or injured at a certain pigeon-shooting competition and expresses inability to bring in legislation. On page 5, col. 2, an M.P. is reported as mentioning a case in which a puppy had been kicked to death and as asking the Home Secretary whether the law imposing imprisonment for a short term could not be strengthened. On the same page, col. 5, a railway porter is reported as having been fined for flinging three small calves into a farm cart by the tails.

[250] For poultry statistics, see Appendix LXVII.

[251] Before the extensive use of yofuku (foreign clothes) the dress of Japanese men and women was entirely of cotton and silk or of cotton only. Much of the material from which yofuku are made is no doubt cotton.

[252] See Appendix LXVIII

[253] The number of cattle, which was 1,342,587 in 1916, was only 1,307,120 in 1918. See also Appendix LXVI.

[254] For photographs and particulars of the milk sheep, see my Free Farmer in a Free State.

[255] The value of the well-bred and well-cared-for goat as a milk and manure producer is underestimated. The problem of keeping goats in such a way that they shall not be destructive and shall yield the maximum of manure is discussed in my Case for the Goat.

[256] This question as it affects an agricultural country is discussed in A Free Farmer in a Free State.

[257] There is a consensus of scientific opinion that "non-meat eating" races such as the Japanese have longer alimentary tracts than flesh-eating Europeans. It is difficult to be precise on the subject, an eminent Western surgeon tells me, for bowels are as contractile as worms, which at one minute measure 100 units in length and the next minute have shortened to 30. So much depends on the state at death.

[258] On the other hand, the Japanese have taken up many new things at the point which we in the West have only recently reached. They begin to produce milk and supply it, not in the milkman's pail, but in sterilised bottles. They abandon candles and lamps and, practically skipping gas, adopt electric light or power. The capital invested in electric enterprises in 1919 was about 700 million yen or seven times that invested in gas.

[259] There is one blameless form of stock keeping which is developing in Hokkaido. Bees, which have still to make their way in Old Japan, are now 6,000 hives strong in the northern island, though a start was made only six or seven years ago.

[260] It is illustrative of the extent to which pickle is consumed in Japan that a family in Sapporo was found to have eaten no fewer than 283 daikon in a year.

[261] The reader must put away the impression which this table gives of a varied dietary. Few Japanese have such a range of food. The average man habitually lives on rice, bean products (tofu, bean jelly and miso, soft bean cheese), pickles, vegetables, tea, a little fish and sometimes eggs. People of narrow means see little of eggs and not much fish, unless it be katsubushi.

[262] The watering of vegetables with liquid manure, the usual practice of the Japanese farmer, and the pollution of the paddies make salads and insufficiently cooked green stuff dangerous and many water supplies of questionable purity. Great efforts have been made to provide safe tap water from the hills. Intestinal parasites are common. The build of the Japanese makes for strength, but in the urban areas there is much absence from work on the plea of ill-health. Both in Japan and in England I have been struck by the fact that when I made an excursion with an urban Japanese he often tired before I did, and on none of these trips was I in anything like first-class condition.

[263] Many Japanese look forward to a great production of wheat on the north-eastern Asiatic mainland under Japanese auspices. In considering imports of wheat it should be remembered that some of it is used in soy and macaroni.



CHAPTER XXXIX

MUST THE JAPANESE MAKE THEIR OWN "YOFUKU"?[264]

"God damn all foreigners!"—Interrupter at one of Mr. Gladstone's early meetings at Oxford

When I was in Hokkaido sheep were being experimented with at different places on the mainland, investigators and sheep buyers had gone off to Australia, New Zealand and South America, and a Tokyo Sheep Bureau of two dozen officials had been established. Great hopes were built on a few hundred sheep in Hokkaido.[265] But I noticed that Government farm sheep were under cover on a warm September day. Also I heard of trouble with two well-known sheep ailments. There was talk nevertheless of the day when there would be a million sheep in Hokkaido, perhaps three millions. On the mainland I also met high officials and enthusiastic prefectural governors who dreamed dreams of sheep farming in Old Japan, where land is costly, farms small, agriculture intensive, grazing ground to seek, and farmland necessarily damp. This sheep keeping is conceived as one animal or perhaps two on a holding as rather unhappy by-products. The notion is that the wool and manure of a sheep would meet the expense of its keep and that the mutton would be profit. Hopes of an extension of sheep breeding resting on such a basis seem to be extravagant. One high authority told me that it would take twenty or thirty years to develop sheep keeping.

The sheep at present in Japan are not living in natural conditions. They feed on cultivated crops. Sheep could hardly live a week on natural Japanese pasture. The wild herbage is full of the sharp bamboo grass. In the summer much of the eatable herbage dries up. Not only must sheep endure the summer heat and insects; they must survive the trying rainy season. But they must do more than merely endure and survive. In order to produce good wool it is necessary that they shall be in good condition. The hair of one's head immediately shows the effect of imperfect nutrition or unhealthy conditions, and it is the same with the wool on the back of the sheep.

It is said that the quality of the wool on the sheep kept in Japan depreciates. However this may be, it is plain that sheep breeding must be conducted on a large scale in order to produce wool in commercial quantities and of even quality. Some notion of the land normally required for sheep may be estimated from the fact that Australian pasture carries no more than four sheep per acre.[266]

An improvement of Japanese herbage sufficient to fit it for sheep would be a heavy task even in small areas. It is not only the herbage but the rocks below it which are all wrong for sheep, if we are to judge by the geological formations on which sheep flourish in the West. If the sheep were put on cultivated land[267] or placed on straw as I saw them in Hokkaido there would be serious risks of foot rot. No doubt there would also be insect pests to control. If Japan set up sheep keeping she would no doubt have to devise her own special breed of sheep, for the well-known Western breeds are artificial products. Probably the experiments which are being made in China with sheep at an earlier stage of development are proceeding on the right lines. I have already spoken of the fact that a Japanese taste for mutton has yet to be cultivated.

This is a formidable list of difficulties confronting the new Governmental Sheep Bureau. No doubt much may be done by a large expenditure of money and much patience. The Japanese have wrought marvels before by spending money and having a large stock of patience. Account must also be taken of the spirit reflected in the speech made to me by a Japanese friend when I read the foregoing paragraph to him:

"But we are keen to try. If there were no necessity to prepare for war, when we must have wool for soldiers, sailors and officials, we might rely on Australia and elsewhere and hope to improve the inferior and dirty Chinese wool. But thinking of the disease prevailing in Northern Manchuria and of service needs, we want to try sheep keeping with some subsidy in Hokkaido and on the mainland in Northern Aomori where there is much dry wild land and the farmers are often miserable—there are villages where the people do not wash. We might provide some of the wool needed by Japan. We have practically met our needs in sugar, though of course our needs are small compared with England and America."

Let us turn from the sheep problem to the factory problem. What are the difficulties of the woollen industry? In the first place, as we have seen, there is no home supply of wool worth mentioning. Further, there is the intricacy of woollen manufacture. Cotton machinery has been brought to such a pitch of perfection for every operation and there are in existence so many technical manuals for every department of cotton manufacture that a certain standardisation of output is not difficult. The problem of woollen manufacture is much more complicated. The output cannot be similarly standardised, and there are many directions in which originality, self-reliance and experience come into play decisively.

In the woollen districts of Great Britain the operatives are people who have been in the trade all their lives, whose parents and grandparents have been in the trade before them. There is not only an hereditary aptitude but an hereditary interest. There is not only an individual interest but an interest of the whole community. The welfare of a town or city is wrapped up in the woollen industry. This is not so in Japan. The mill workers in the Tokyo prefecture, for example, come from remote parts of Japan, and the girls—and three-quarters of the employees of the woollen industry are girls—are merely on a three-years contract. The girls arrive absolutely inexperienced. Even in England it is considered that it takes two or three years to make a worker skilful. Within the three-years period for which the Japanese mill girls or their parents contract, as many as 30 per cent. leave the mills and, appalling fact, from 20 to 25 per cent. die.[268] Not more than 10 per cent. renew their three-years contract. Therefore there is, at present at any rate, little real skilled labour in the factories. Another difficulty is the absence of skilful wool sorters. Even before the War a good wool sorter commanded in England from L3 to L4 a week. One of the things which hampers the Japanese woollen industry is the prevalence of illness at the factories. They must have, in consequence, about 25 per cent. more labour than is needed.

Generally one would say that the industry at its present stage is not only weak on the labour side,[269] but, where it is efficient, is skilful rather in imitation than in original design. Everything produced is an imitation of foreign designs. That is not an unnatural state of things, however, at the commencement of a new industry.

With regard to the old complaint of Japanese goods failing to come up to sample, the shortcoming is often due not to intentional dishonesty but simply to inability to produce a uniform product. In one factory an order had to be filled by bringing together work from 300 different places. The first delivery of the cloth produced for the Russian army was like the sample, but the later deliveries, though of excellent material, were not, for the simple reason that the precise raw materials for the required blending did not exist in Japan.

One of the marvels of the industry is the high prices obtained in Japan. The best winter serge was selling in England before the War at 8s. a yard. The Japanese price for winter serge was from 5 to 6 yen. Before the War it was possible to import cloth at 50 per cent. less than the local rates. Nevertheless there seemed to be a market for everything. Japanese cloth lacks finish but it is made out of good materials and will wear. The factories are compelled to use a better quality of material in order to get anywhere near the appearance of imported goods. A foreign manufacturer, "owing to his skill in manufacture," as it was once explained to me, may produce a cloth of a certain quality containing only 10 per cent. new wool: the Japanese manufacturer, in order to produce a comparable article must use 30 per cent. new wool. Obviously this means that the Japanese factory must charge higher prices.

In considering the position of the industry it is natural to ask how it would be affected if the Japanese factories were able to draw more largely upon Manchuria for wool. The answer is that the sheep in Manchuria at present yield what is called "China" wool, which is suitable only for blankets and coarse cloth.

To some who feel a sympathy for Japan in her present stage of industrial development and are inclined to take long views it may seem a pity that she should contemplate making such a radical change in her national habits as is represented by the demand for woollen materials and for meat. Japanese dress, easy, hygienic and artistic though it is, and admirably suited for wearing in Japanese dwellings, is ill adapted for modern business life, not to speak of factory conditions. But it has not yet been demonstrated that Japan is under the necessity of substituting, to so large an extent as she evidently contemplates doing, woollen for cotton and silk clothing, and Western clothing for her own characteristic raiment.[270] The cotton padded garment and bed cover are both warm and clean. It is odd that this new demand on the part of Japan for woollen material should coincide with movements in Europe and America to utilise more cotton, for underclothing at any rate. There is undoubtedly a hygienic case of a certain force against wool. The same is true of meat. It may well be that the dietary of many Japanese has not been sufficiently nutritious, but much of the meat-eating which is now being indulged in seems to be due more to an aping of foreign ways than to physical requirements. The more meat Japan eats and the more she dresses herself in wool the more she places herself under the control of the foreigner.[271] Whatever degree of success may attend sheep breeding within the limits imposed upon it by physical conditions in Japan, the raw material of the woollen industry must be mostly a foreign product. As far as meat is concerned, it is difficult to believe that while the agriculture of Japan is based upon rice production there is room for the production of meat on a large scale. If the meat and wool are to be produced in Manchuria and Mongolia we shall see what we shall see. The significance of the experiment of the Manchuria Railway Company since 1913 in crossing merino and Mongolian sheep and the work which is being done on the sheep runs of Baron Okura in Mongolia cannot be overlooked. Ten years hence it will be interesting to examine industrially and socially the position of the woollen industry[272] and the animal industry in Japan and on the mainland, and the net gain that the country has made.

FOOTNOTES:

[264] Yofuku means foreign clothes.

[265] In 1920 there were 8,219 sheep in Japan, including 945 in Hokkaido.

[266] A sheep produces about 7 lbs. of wool in the year. But this is the unscoured weight. In Japan, an expert assured me, it would not reach more than 56 to 60 per cent. when scoured.

[267] "To-day sheep cannot, be kept on arable to leave any reward to the farmer."—Country Life, August 20, 1921.

[268] See Appendix LXIX.

[269] See Appendix LXX.

[270] An immense amount of silk is used in Japanese men's clothing. The kimono, except the cheaper summer kind and the bath kimono (yukata), which are cotton, is silk. So are the hakama (divided skirt) and the haori (overcoat). Japanese women's clothes are largely silk. The dress of working people is cotton, but even they have some silk clothing.

[271] "By degrees they proceeded to all the stimulations of banqueting which was indeed part of their bondage."—Tacitus on the Britons under Roman influence.

[272] The industry has already made on the London market an impression of competence in some directions. For production and exports, see Appendix LXX.



CHAPTER XL

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 regime, 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 cho of crops than there are cho 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 cho 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 cho (7-1/2 acres). He farmed a cho of rice field and about a third of a cho 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 cho. 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 cho (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 cho of rural land 320,000 20 cho 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 ======

B

owns 62 cho 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 (5tan 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 cho 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 sake ("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 cho."

BUDGETS OF FARMERS ON THE LAND OF THE HOMMA CLAN, YAMAGATA (page 186).—A tenant had 3 cho 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 cho 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 cho and rented 3 cho 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 cho men are rice farmers—rice farming means farming with rice as the principal crop. The 5-cho men are engaged in mixed farming: