THE FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN.*
" AGRICULTURE," says the Japanese proverb, " is the basis of a nation." More than half the population of Japan is still dependent on the land. It is thus particularly interesting to have an account of rural Japan from Mr. Robertson Scott, who has long studied the land question at home and abroad and who paid a long vbit to Japan during the War. Japan has developed very rapidly as an industrial State, but her power and prosperity are founded on her millions of hardworking small farmers who grow the rice which is the Japanese staff of life. In his very readable and candid book, well fortified with statistics and summaries of native views, Mr. Robertson Scott describes a lengthy tour through the different provinces of Japan, including Hokkaido. The general impression derived from his chapters is that of a very frugal, industrious and on the whole contented people. The peasant-proprietors are declining in number and the tenant-farmers are increasing, but this regrettable change is proceeding slowly and may yet be checked. The villagers retain their traditional respect for the Emperor, and are as a rule peaceful and courteous folk. The village schools are highly efficient, and the agricultural colleges, which are thronged with students, exercise already a great effect in raising the standard of cultivation. The farm land is yielding more and is gradually being increased, for loss than a sixth of the area of Japan is under crops, as compared with rather more than a fourth in Great Britain. The Japanese farmer's lot would seem very unenviable to a European. The rice-grower is incessantly at work in the watery mud which rice requires ; sericulture involves close attention for weeks at a stretch to the feeding of the silkworms and to the treatment of the cocoons ; tea-planting calls for infinite care in details.
• The Foundations of Japan. By J. W. t•• Home Conakii "j, London : John Murray. Inc net.) For all his labour. and watchfulness the Japanese peasant _has a, very modest return and lives the simplest of -lives. But there is no need to question -the author's conclusion that rural Japan, save .in districts afflicted by bad landlords, is by no means unhappy.
The current theory that Japan is much over-populated and must therefore obtain oversee, colonies is not borne out by Mr. Robertson Scott's book. It is true that in some provinces the population is very thick on the soil, and every square yard available on the hillsides is tilled with care. But there is still plenty of waste land to be reclaimed, especially in the northern island of 'Hokkaido, and the population—now about 56,000,000, for a country larger by a sixth than the British Isles—is not increasing so rapidly -as it was a few years ago. The Japanese, it must be remembered, do not readily leave their homeland. They are not very anxious even to migrate from the main island to Hokkaido, which is much colder. It is a curious fact that until half a century ago Hokkaido was almost entirely neglected and that the population, now over 2,000,000, was then barely 60,000. The author gives several instructive chapters to this island, which has been developed on American lines and is wholly unlike the rest of Japan. Stock-farming, for examplk which is almost unknown in the other islands, is being practised in Hokkaido under State supervision, though the Japanese farmers do not seem to be able to manage sheep. Outside Japan and Korea last year there were, according to the official returns, only 648,000 Japanese subjects—half of them in China, and -most of the remainder in Hawaii and California.
The total, may be understated, but it does not suggest any great willingness on the part of the Japanese to seek a livelihood in less crowded countries.
.Mr. Robertson Scott touches on such questions incidentally, just as he mentions in passing the remarks of a Japanese friend on German influence:-
" We Japanese are not inherently a warlike people and have no desire to be militarists ; but we are suffering from German influence not only in the army but through the middle-aged legal, scientific and administrative classes who were largely educated in .Germany or influenced by German teaching. This German influence may have been held in check to some extent, perhaps, by the artistic world, which has certainly not been German, except in relation to music, and after all that is the best part of Germany. Many young people have taken their ideas largely from Russia ; more from the United States and Great Britain. But Germany will always make her appeal on account of her reputation with us for system, order, industry, depth of knowledge, persistence and nationalism."
He inquired everywhere as to the religious views of the people and was generally told that religion counted for little. He was conversing with two village elders :- " ' We are not a metaphysical people,' one of them said. '"Nor -were our forefathers as religious as some students may suppose. Those who went before us gave -to the Buddhist shrine and even worshipped there, but their daily life.and their religion had no close connection. We did not define religion closely. Religion has phases according to the degree of public instruction. Our religion has had more to do with propitiation and good fortune than with morality. If you had come here a century ago you would have been unable to find even then religion after another pattern. If it be said that a man must be religious in order to be good the person who says so does not -look about him. I am not afraid to say that our people are good as a result of long training in good behaviour. Their good character is due to the same causes as the freedom from rowdiness which may be marked in our crowds.' . . The first speaker said that there had been three watch- words for the rural districts. ' There was Industrialisation and Increase of Production. There was Public Spirit and Public Welfare. There was The Shinto Shrine the Centre of the Village. We have a certain conception of a model village, but perhaps some hypocrisy may mingle with it. They say that the village with well-kept Buddhist and Shinto shrines is generally a good village.' In other words,' I ventured, the village where there is some non-material feeling.' The rejoinder was : Western religion is too high, and, I fear, inapplicable to our life. It may be that we are too •easily contented. But there are nearly 60 millions of us. I do not know that we feel a need or have a vacant place for religion. There is certainly not much hope for an increase of the influence of Buddhism.'"
Such is the background of the superficially attractive picture of rural Japan—docile, laborious, well-mannered, even kindly— that Mr. Robertson Scott paints with abounding care and sympathy. We are left wondering how long this easy material- ism will endure. The blacker side of Japanese industrialism, which has had too many parallels in Western countries and even in America, is discussed in the chapter on the silk mills, where very young girls work fifteen hours a day for a mere pittance so that Japanese industry may compete with the more efficient labour of the West. This-is a passing phase, no doubt, but it is a great pity that Japan has not been able to profit by the sad experience of older industrial States, who neglected the health of the factory workers and are now paying dearly 'for it. Rural Japan is already suffering through the demands of industry for cheap female labour. The book is admirably illustrated and may be commended as the work of an honest and competent observer.
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