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