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These figures clearly indicate the decrease of the rural population. To take 10,000 inhabitants as the demarcation line between urban and rural population is probably less correct than to take a demarcation line of 7,500 inhabitants. A mean of the two percentages of populations living in communities under 5,000 and under 10,000 inhabitants shows 61.41 per cent, in 1913 and 56.97 per cent, in 1918, a decrease of 4.44 per cent. The variation between this result and the preceding one has a simple explanation. About 30 per cent, of the families engaged in agriculture carry on their farming as an accessory business. Teachers, priests and mechanics may all have patches of land. On the other hand, a small number of people have no land. Therefore, the percentage of the rural population is only slightly higher than that of the families engaged in agriculture. In 1918 there were 5,476,784 farming families (to 10,460,440 total families or 52.3 per cent.), and if we multiply by 5-1/3—the average number of persons per family in Japan is 5.317 (1918)—to find the population dependent on agriculture, the number is 29,209,514. The total population of Japan in 1918 was 55,667,711. The Department of Agriculture has stated that on the basis of the census of 1918 the number of persons in households engaged in agriculture was 52 per cent. of the population. According to one set of statistics the percentage of farming families to non-farming families fell from 64 per cent, in 1904 to 60.3 per cent. in 1910 and 56 in 1914. We shall probably not be far wrong in supposing the rural population to be at present about 55 per cent, of the population. The percentage of persons actually working on the farms is another matter. As has been seen, some 30 per cent, of the 5-1/2 million farming families are engaged in agriculture as a secondary business only. It may be, therefore, that the 5-1/2 million families do not actually yield more than 10 million effective farm hands.
IS RICE THE RIGHT CROP FOR JAPAN [LXXIX]. Mr. Katsuro Hara, of the College of Literature, Kyoto University, asks, “Is Japan specially adapted for the production of rice?” and answers: “Southern Japan is of course not unfit. But rice does not conform to the climate of northern Japan. This explains the reason why there have been repeated famines. By the choice of this uncertain kind of crop as the principal foodstuff the Japanese have been obliged to acquiesce in a comparatively enhanced cost of living. The tardiness of civilisation may be perhaps partly attributed to this fact. Why did our forefathers prefer rice to other cereals? Was a choice made in Japan? If the choice was made in this country the unwisdom of the choice and of the choosers is now very patent.”
Along with this expression of opinion may be set the following figures, showing the total production of rice and of other grain crops during the past six years, in thousands of koku:
