JAPAN'S FOOD PROBLEM

Evening Star, Issue 19273, 11 June 1926, Page 8

JAPAN'S FOOD PROBLEM

TO BE PEACEFULLY SOLVED TWHat is Japan to do with her overJnultiplying population? The days of mass emigration ax© over. 'America will not have the Japanese, Canada and Australia will not have them. South America is hostile to them. On their own side of the Pacific Kupia will not have them in Siberia, and they may not own or leas© land in. the Philippines or in China proper. But l Japan has Korea and Formosa, and the rights in Manchuria she wrested from Russia in 1905. Short of war, she has no prospect of any other outlet for her people, yet her surplus population is said to be increasing by seven hundred .thousand a year. But Japan does not want war, ana a remarkable statement wo have been reading of her aims and desires tells ns how she is struggling to meet her problem with the resources she already possesses. If her people are to remain at home they must have food and employment. Japan “intends to work out her salvation at home by bringing all her waste lands under cultivation, by building railways, by electrifying water-power, and in every other way possible creating new of wealth that will enable her to survive.” But even so, she must have food and raw materials for her industries, and she is doing a wonderful work in Manchuria for this purpose. We are fond of saying that Japan is “exploiting Manchuria, but it is said that for every dollar of direct profit taken out of Manchuria hv the Japanese ten dollars have found their way into Chinese pockets. The supplies of coal and iron are virtually inexhaustible, and from the development of these China stands to gain as much as Japan. But the grea test gain from the_ opening up of the country is in the increase of the food supply. Millet has hitherto been the chief food crop for man. and beast. The Chinese could never make rice grow in Manchuria, nor in the neighboring Mongolia; and soya beans, with their precious oil, were only sparsely cultivated. But the Japanese have shown them how to grow rice; and rice, beans, and wheat are an everincreasing crop, while the herdsmen of Eastern Mongolia are finding a steadily growing market for cattle and sheep, which the coming development of cold storage will further increase. By these means Japan hopes to keep her people at home and feed and employ them. A competent American observer declares that the Japanese are striving their utmost by this development of Manchuria to find a peaceful means of solving their population problem. He might have mentioned as evidence that they are trying to do good to China as well as to help themselves that the Chinese are migrating to Manchuria from farther south at the rate of 400,000 a year. However that may be, there is no denying the wonderful energy which has carried through this transformation or the value to mankind of such a growing development of the world’s food resources.,r—‘ My Magazine.’

The Native Land Count, under Judge W.' Gilfedder, completed its periodical Bitting in Dunedin this morning. Nothing of outstanding importance was dealt with during the session, the business comprising the usual formal matters in connection with Native lands.

Almost every president of the United States has been given an identifying sobriquet; by the American people ■or the Press. Washington was “Father of His ■ Country ” and “ American Fabius”; Adams was the “Colossus of Independence” and the “Son of Liberty’’; Jefferson the “Sage of-Monte-cillo ” and “Long Tom”; Monroe was the “Last Cocked Hat,” and John Quincey Adams was “Old Man Eloquence”; Madison the “Father of the Constitution”: Jackson “Old Hickory” and “Cmsar of the White House”; Van Buren the “Little Magician” and the “ Wizard of Kinderbrook.”; Harrison, “Tippecanoe.” Both Tyler and Polk were known as “Young Hickory”; Lincoln was u Honest Old Abe,” the “Rail Splitter.” and the “Great Emancipator”: Johnstone, “Sir Veto”; Arthur, America’s First Gentleman” and “Our Chet”; and Cleveland the *Nm ef. >,»•