LAND OF RISING SUN

Taranaki Daily News, 7 October 1931, Page 6

LAND OF RISING SUN

CHICAGO JUDGE ON JAPAN. EASY DIVORCE SYSTEM. Prefacing his remark® by pointing out that the country is peopled by 82 million inhabitants, and ranks fifth in size among the nations of the world in point of population, Judge Collyer, of Chicago, gave an address on Japan to the Wellington branch of the Eng-lish-Speaking Union. Judge Collyer is a much-travelled American who has visited most of the countries of tho world, and some of them many times. He said that he had never seen as many babies as he saw in Japan, where every man and woman appeared to be carrying a baby. It was not, however, until Japan came to adopt western ideas that she rose, within the course of a little more than half a century, to the position which she now holds, in which her counsel is always sought in any international conference. Judge Collyer referred to tho strong opposition that had been met with when tho present Emperor, before ascending the throne, decided to make a trip to Europe to study foreign customs, and subsequently introduced many of these customs into his own country, .The Emperor is s -the 124th descendant of his line, and no other country, except the kingdom of Abyssinia can claim to possess a lino of rulers which has occupied the throne for an unbroken sequence of 3060 years. It was their enlightened Emperor who forbade the Japanese to have so much as a thimbleful of wine at the inaugural function when he ascended the throne, Judge Collyer remarking that drinking was one of the habits that Oriental people had adopted from Western countries. Referring to tho women of Japan, Judge Collyer said that they are regarded more or less as chattels, and have no claim on their husbands even for the necessaries of life. When he was in the country he had been approached by Japanese women who had asked him to do what he could to secure for them some of tho freedom and consideration that they had seen enjoyed by American and European women. Divorce in Japan made even the Reno system of ‘‘thirty days, thirty dollars, seem difficult in comparison. All that was necessary was for the husband to call in a neighbour and lodge a complaint, just or unjust, against his wife, and the Japanese were too courteous for any questions to be asked regarding the strength of the grounds for the decree.