DISTRESS IN JAPAN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 228, 26 August 1932, Page 6

DISTRESS IN JAPAN.

The Tokio message stating that Prince Takamatsu has donated half a million yen for the relief of distress in Japan, and the Emperor has opened a special session of the Diet to deal with relief measures presents a picture of suffering that has become a paramount national problem. When, following the assassination of the Prime Minister (Mr Hi Inukai) and the appointment of a national Government with Admiral Baron Saito at its head, the Diet was convened in June, 32,UU0 farmers presented a petition seeking - the establishment of a Lind to permit them to migrate to Manchuria. They also asked for a three years’ moratorium on their pxdvate debts, and a subsidy for the purchase of fertiliser. An investigation revealed the plight to which many had been reduced. In certain prefectures famine conditions almost prevailed, cattle food alone standing between the people and starvation. Agrarian unrest in Japan is caused by conditions which have injured the welfare of primary producers in other countries. In Japan, however, it has been said, the difference in prices between what the peasant sells and what he buys is probably more accentuated than in other places. Forty percent. of the people till the soil, mostly on small holdings. The peasant looks to the production of silk and its speedy marketingunder profitable conditions to give him something more than a bare subsistence, for he rears the silkworms, cultivates the mulberry leaves on which the worms feed, and reels the silk in his farm shed. But the price of silk has fallen along- with other articles lie produces for the market, and the Japanese peasant feels the pinch. The cost of fertilisers, so necessary to maintain the fertility of the soil, on the other hand, has not fallen to anything like the same extent. Japan’s case is paralleled in other countries—the fall in prices for land industry products being- much steeper than those used in their production. The claim of the Japanese farmers for a subsidy to purchase fertiliser is explained. In the new Prime Minister the agrarian class have a Government leader who is keenly sympathetic in their difficulties. Admiral Saito is related to the Satsuma clan which wields considerable influence in Japan, while the record of his administration in Korea, where for several years he was Governor-General, reflects his agrarian sympathies. In the domestic field Admiral Saito’s Government has difficult tasks to face; the same is true in the foreign sphere. But behind the veteran leader stands the influential Prince Saionji, the last of the Elder Statesmen, and, it has been said, no better person than Admiral Saito could have received his imprimatur to guide Japan in her troublous period.