RURAL JAPAN

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 December 1935, Page 3

RURAL JAPAN

PLIGHT OF SIX PROVINCES. A vivid description of acuje agrarian distress in the six northern prefectures of Japan’s main island, Fukushima, Yamagata ; , Miyagi, Iwate, Aomori and Akita, is contained' in a pamphlet which was recently issued by the Imperial Agricultural Society, the leading organisation representing farming interests in Japan. As characteristic symptoms of the crisis which this part of Japan is experiencing, the pamphlet mentions widespread hunger and disease, a growing mountainous burden of debt, inability of the .local authorities to pay teachers’ salaries, increased social unrest and a marked growth in the sale of girls to the licensed quarters of the cities. q’hese northern districts of Japan have always been relatively poor, backward and neglected. There is little industry, except for some oil wells in Akita, and the peasants have been accustomed to eke out a bare subsistence by means of rice and vegetable cultivation and woodcutting. Unseasonably cold wieather, combined with storms and floods, made 1934 aii exceptionally bad year, There were heavy losses not only of rice crops but also of fruit and mulberry trees. The total damage from natural disasters was estimated at almost 125,000,000 yen.

FLOODS. The present year has been unfavourable from the climatic standpoint, with unseasonable heavy rains, which in some cases culminated in floods. The Government has tried to relieve the stricken areas by remitting national and' local land taxes and by initiating public works, such as road building, development of irrigation systems, improvement of harbour facilities, etc. According to the Imperial Agricultural Society, however, the remission of local taxes Jias led to a breakdown of essential services, especially., ofcducation. It criticises the amount spent on relief public works, abou ; t 18,090,000 yen, as inadequate, especially in view of the fact that almost 8,000,000 yen was raised in the districts themselves. The total rural indebtedness in these prefectures is now in excess of 660,000,000 yen, an average of 1160 yen per farming household. The local authorities suggest three reasons for the increasing sale of girls by peasant families. First is the pressure of debt, secondly the urgent need for money to meet other expenses, and thirdly the impulse to reduce the number of mouths to be fed'. The acute disti/ess in the rural regions, of which the northern provinces furnish the worst, but by no means the sole examples, is a major cause of the social unrest and ferment in Japan that have found expression in the formation of many extremist groups, some of them largely recruited from young army officers, and in a number of political assassinations and attempts at asst! ssi nation.