NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1926. JAPAN’S GROWTH

Northern Advocate, 19 June 1926, Page 4

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY

SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1926. JAPAN’S GROWTH

Registered for transmission through the post as a newspaper. ■—

Japan’s growth as a world force is one of the outstanding facts of history. Never did a nation rise so swiftly from obscurity to eminence. Sixty years ago her statesmen decided to miter into international intercourse. As an initial step, more than three hundred feudal chiefs voluntarily surrendered their rights, titles and lauds to tire Emperor. By that process the j nation became defeudalised. Chiefs j and serfs ceased to exist as such; they j became private citizens, owing direct • allegiance to an Emperor. With the j granting of the franchise to a limited 1 number of property holders at the j close of the last century, the political j education of the Japanese people started. Last year universal suffrage was j established. Apart from Korea, with its 17,000,000, and Formosa, with its 4.000. Japan proper has a population of 56,000,000. These latter are among the most talked of people in the world today. Rapidly, dramatically they have stepped into a star j part on the world’s stage. The Japan- j ose suffer all the disabilities which j eomo from overcrowding. Although the land is only one-twentieth the size of Australia, it contains more I than nine times Australia’s population, j It is increasing at the rate of three- i quarters of a million per annum. The ■ soil, wdiich is supposed to furnish I them all with sustenance, does j so inadequately. The country is extensively mountainous; only one acre in every six can be cultivated. Yet .six out of every ten Japanese work on the land. That land is as poor in mineral resources as in agricultural facilities. The known coal reserves j are only one twenty-fourth of Great Britain’s. Such a limited supply forbids Japan cherishing any hope of a very extensive trade in raw coal or in heavy manufactured goods. It may I also explain any desire Japan has displayed to gain control over the large , coal and iron deposits in Manchuria and Shantung. As a writer very pointedly comments, Japan has not failed to note'a similar tendency in nations | similarly situated. Though her minerals are meagre, she is most successful as a manufacturer. Fifty years ago Japanese exports and imports totalled £5,000,000; five years ago they totalled £367,324,000. Japan and the “cherry blossom business” was always overdone; it is now completely done. Japan can be expressed much more accurately in terms of modern industry. There is a ceaseless hum of huge factories at Osaka: extensive iron works are in full blast at Tama-ta; practically every large city has its acres of sheds and forests of chimneys. Out of this industrial development . there has grown a vigorous Labour j movement. Every year there are hundreds of strikes and May Day demonstrations are quite in keeping with western habits. There are some 28.000. women in Japan, more

than half of them employed in whole or part-time work, under conditions which justifiably cause grave dissatisfaction. Every morning the mothers of Japan send off 8,000,000 boys and girls to school, where they have the advantage of one of the finest educational systems in the world. These are but a few of the indications that Japan is wiping the cobwebs of centuries from her eyes, and is making a plucky attempt to win a place among the progressive nations.