MODERN JAPAN

Hokitika Guardian, 15 March 1929, Page 7

MODERN JAPAN

THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM,

LECTURE BY DR CONDLIFFE,

CHRISTCHURCH, March 13

Dr J. B. Condliffe continued his series of lectures on Pacific Problems yesterday afternoon at Canterbury College, when he dealt with the subject “The Making of Modern Japan.” For about 250 years Japan had developed entirely internally, having practically no communication with the outside world, he said. In the year 1852 America first made trade with Japan possible. The subsequent rapid influx of foreign ideas had meant a great deal of discontent and trouble, in 18G8 there was a revolution against, the old Shogunate regime and the Empire, as it is now constituted, came into being. Dr Condliffe explained the position tne Emperor holds in Japan. It was a priestly office rather than a secular one. This religious aspect of the Imperial Office formed a pivot for Japanese loyalty, and kept that loyalty steady and firm in the midst of drastic industrial changes. The true nobility of the Japanese ruling class might be well perceived in their attitude towards modernisation, They realised that changes were inevitable and determined to see that those changes* were of the best. They realised that the only advance was based on education and primarily on University education. At fipst the Japanese specialised on physical and natural sciences. Their students had gone aTiroad at critical stages of their careers to complete their education. Men, who, in New Zealand Universities, would naturally succeed to assistant lectureships and professors, were automatically sent abroad by the Imperial Universities of Japan for three years. The average Japanese lecturer understood English, German, French, Italian, and Chinese. Hence their culture was derived from all the world. It was remarkable how the Japanese community prized leadership and how they fostered it.

There were several almost overwhelming problems awaiting the best brains that Japan could bring to bear on them. The most important to our eyes the terrific pressure of the population. The area of Japan was half as great again as the area of New Zealand, supporting a population of sixty millions. There was an annual increase of 875,000 per year, a surprising number being immigrants from Korea and China. The food sup. ply was dominantly vegetarian, which could not give a balanced diet. Dr Concliffe incidently pointed out that New Zealand butter was particularly rich in those vitamines which were lacking in the average Japanese food supply, which might possibly open out a new field for enterprise. The result of the increasing population was that the food problem was naturally becoming more acute. But, strangely enough, poverty has become less and the standard of living higher. This was primarily due to education.

The natural suggestion for the solution of his problem was that Japanese should emigrate en masse to Australia and Canada. This would never happen. The Japanese had a strange disclination to leave their own country, and, in any case, no Japanese statesman would be so unwise as to push a point of view so obviously antagonistic to the interests of the rest of the Pacific. The Japanese had no objection to this point of view, but what they did object to was .the insulting way in which exclusion was carried out, particularly by the United States. They considered that America was doing an injustice to her own honour in the attitude she had taken up and were prepared to await patiently the time when such foolish prejudice against a yellow skin would be removed. Another solution of the excess population question might be found in birth-control. The results of this, however, would not be noticeable for at least a generation, and an immediate solution was necessary. The Japanese themselves were trying to solve the problem bv means of absorption in internal industries. This meant a change from rural to a city population and this change was now being effected with its usual disaffection among the peasant class. Tt looked as if Japan was lasing her peasants altogether. Moreover, there was a great 1 i.;k of efficient foremen, sub-managers and managers in business concerns, and although the heads of departments might be first-class men, things went wrong lower clown. This was the reason for the inferior quality of Japanese goods after the war. The leaders had to create an atmosphere which would automatically breed thousands of efficient craftsmen. They had to give Western democracy in instalments, as is were, and the latest instalment, as dustrialism was causing more trouble than any other.