A NATIONAL CLEAN UP

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 17, 15 October 1926, Page 10

A NATIONAL CLEAN UP

JAPAN’S EXAMPLE “CLEANEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD” "As time goes on we may have a national Health Week movement,” remarked Mr. A. E. Batt, who presided at the Health Week gathering in the Town Hall last night. Referring to Japan, one of the oldest of nations, yet the most modern in adopting European ideas, Mr. Batt said that the Japanese had a national ‘‘clean-up” month in the spring of every year, when, according to law, the whole nation underwent a clean-up. "The whole of Japan and its outIving islands, including Korea, is cut up into blocks,” Mr. Batt proceeded, "and on a given date the police and Government officials commence operations. They take a certain street, which is for the time blocked off from traffic—everything in the houses having to be turned out and put on the street.” Mr. Batt mentioned that, owing to the nature of the construction of their homes, the Japanese got more sunshine than New Zealanders, so they really had less necessity for a clean-up. After tne chattels bad been removed the flooring was taken up and the part underneath disinfected. The floor coverings were cleaned, and the people themselves subjected to an inspection by medical men. Then the inspectors supervised the re-installa-tion of the chattels and persuaded the owners to give up anything useless. Not a House Missed. "Not a house in the whole of Japan is missed,” the speaker went on. “I doubt if New Zealanders would stand being turned topsy-turvy like that. You may think it is necessarv for the Japanese to go through it. but in my opinion thev are the cleanest people in the whole world. It is the national custom, from those of the-. highest rank to the poorest coolie, to have a hot bath everv night, and it is really a religion with them. "The Japanese have thb commercial mind, too. The whole of the gathering of useless articles which results from the clean-up campaign is taken awav, and the metals, etc., are sorted out from it and utilised, onlv what is absolutely good-for-nothing being destroyed. So you see the Japanese are very practical people in every wav.”