VISITING JAPANESE.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIII, 3 February 1923, Page 5

VISITING JAPANESE.

thJ JapaßeSe MJ for some years. Mr Kakuta is a e ™»ent official, who has come to .During the course of a brief interview, Mr Akafatsu said the conditions in Japan at the present moment were not happy. “The people, are I Should not say al] of them-but some of them are very poor. You know what it is as they say on the stage—“the rich get rich and the poor get children. ’ Yes, it is funny, but it is true. There is a good deal of unemployment. The Peace Conference was responsible for a lot of it. A big number of army and navy men were thrown out of work, and it is a big problem. America has locked us out. Australia doesn’t want us. Same thing here. So we must look after ourselves, eh? Yes. “There is only one thing to do in Japan—break up some of the large estates. The rich people have all the country, and meanwhile there are thousands in the eities with nothing to db, and not much to eat. Of course, conditions are much better now than they were before the war. The standard of wages is higher. A carpenter gets IDs a day. He didn’t get that before. Still, the Government realises that the people must be put on the land, and given a chance to work and keep themselves. Japan wants to know the most efficacious method 1 of settling her people. Simething on the Canadian lines. Mr Kakuta spent some time in Australian making inquiries concerning the methods employed there. He will do the same in New Zealand. The big estates must be bought from the rich by the Governin' mt, and then sold to the people in small lots, and they must be given something to plant and grow. The time has come for altered conditions.” wWrfwwa - naim