---------|----------|---------------|--------|---------

----|--------
Year  |  Barley  | Naked Barley  | Wheat  | Barley and  |  Rice
|          |               |        |   Wheat     |
---------|----------|---------------|--------|-------------|

--------
1915  | 10,253   |    8,296      | 5,231  |   23,781    | 55,924
1916  |  9,559   |    7,921      | 5,869  |   23,350    | 58,442
1917  |  9,169   |    8,197      | 6,786  |   24,155    | 54,658
1918  |  8,368   |    7,777      | 6,431  |   22,576    | 54,699
1919  |  9,664   |    7,995      | 5,611  |   23,271    | 60,818
---------|----------|---------------|--------|-------------|

--------

From 1910 to 1919 the areas under barleys and wheat were, in cho, 1,771,655-1,729,148, and under rice 2,949,440-3,104,611.

INNER COLONISATION v.  FOREIGN EXPANSION [LXXX]. An Introduction to the History of Japan (1921), written by an Imperial University professor and published by the Yamato Society, the members of which include some of the most distinguished men in Japan, says:  “It is doubtful whether the backwardness of the north can be solely attributed to its climatic inferiority.  Even in the depth of winter the cold in the northern provinces cannot be said to be more unbearable than that of the Scandinavian countries or of north-eastern Germany.  The principal cause of the retardation of progress in northern Japan lies rather in the fact that it is comparatively recently exploited....  The northern provinces might have become far more populous, civilised and prosperous than we see them now.  Unfortunately for the north, just at the most critical time in its development the attention of the nation was compelled to turn from inner colonisation to foreign relations.  The subsequent acquisition of dominions oversea made the nation still more indifferent.”

According to a report of the Hokkaido Government in 1921, the number of immigrants during the latest three year period was 90,000, and one and a half million acres are available for cultivation and improvement.

AGRICULTURE v.  COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY [LXXXI].  There is supposed to be more money invested in land than in commerce or industry.  Comprehensive figures of a trustworthy kind establishing the relative importance of agriculture, commerce and industry are not readily obtained.  “This is a question,” writes a Japanese professor of agriculture to me, “which we should like to study very much.”  Industrial and commercial figures at the end of and immediately after the War are not of much use because of the inflation of that period.  The annual value of agricultural production before the War was about 1,800 million yen; it must be by now about 2,500 or 3,000.  In 1912, according to the Department of Finance, the debt of the agricultural population was 740 million yen.  In 1916 the Japan Mortgage Bank and the prefectural agricultural and industrial banks had together advanced to agricultural organisations 110 millions