JAPAN

Hokitika Guardian, 5 March 1921, Page 1

JAPAN

• >—c WONDERFUL FLOAYER SIIOWS. AMERICAN TRADE ACTIVITY. Theie is a complete absence of Australian news in the East, says Air E. J. ( cole (managing director of Angus aild Coote) who has just returned fro'm a trip, to that part of the world; and there should he an effort, he thinks, to make Australian better known there. American business men, he says, are in (‘very portion of Japan and China. The commercial colleges in Japan turn out hundreds of men of ages ranging from 23 to 30 years, who travel the ..hole world to complete their education. Air Coote is emphatically of opinion that the Japanese language should lie taught in Australian schools. Not only would it, prove of very great advantage to commercial men, he said, hut it would enable tho people of thc Commonwealth to get into touch with Japanese thought, •of which we knew, be said, practically nothing. A 1 r 'Coote found that throughout the East there was stagnation. “The financial depression in Japan,” said lie, '“was responsible for the closing down of thousands of small factories, in Korea conditions were had, and there was a great amount of idle shipping in the harbours. The fall in the price of silver lias had a most detrimental effect upon China’s trade. The shortage of money is easily understood when 15 per cent is being offered for loans on sound security.” Air Coote, who is a great lover of flowers, says that the profusion of chrysanthemums in Japan, and their exquisite shades, will for ever live in his memory. The flower shows there are remarkable. One that greatly impressed'him was at a village seven miles out of Kyoto. Here the characters of a play were actually represented in plucked chrysanthemum blooms. “If the people of Sydney,” said he,

“could arrange a flower show on the unique and magnificent lines of those conducted by the Japanese the attendance would he greater than that at football or a test match.”