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

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

SMALL FARMS DECREASING [XXXI].

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

See also Appendix XLVII.

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

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

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

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

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