THE NEW JAPAN

Hokitika Guardian, 31 July 1929, Page 7

THE NEW JAPAN

SOME AMAZING DEVELOPMENTS

To one returning to Japan after an absence of ten years the most impressive fact is the new and splendid spirit of revival and enterprise with which the nation is forging ahead in almost every direction, says J. Ingram of Yokohama, in the “Sydney Morning Herald.” In spite of severe economic depression*and a persistent adverse balance of trade, to say nothing of high taxes and increased cost of living, Japan is simply bristling with the activity of well-directed labour with inevitably good results. Improvements in locomotion, transportation, and public utilities have been nothing short of phenomenal in the last decade, petrol and electricity being the main source of motor power The increase in motor traffic has been prodigious. Fine public highways and widening streets are everywhere under construction or extension. The tramways system of of Kobe, Yokohama, and Tokio compare favourable with those of New York and London, and in some ways are ev*en more up-to-date and efficient, especially in their

almost noiseless speed. But trams are still as crowded as ever, overflowing passengers clinging to doors and car-ends like flies to a sugar-stick without official molestation, for sometimes it means immense loss or inconvenience to miss a tram in Japan. The sudden appearance of sky-scrap-ers and other pretentious buildings in Kobe, Yokohama, and Tokio is almost incredible, in view of the short time since the last great seismic upheaval. Most of them are imposing steel structures, filled in with concrete, supposedly earthquake' proof. Tokic and Yokohama decimated six year ag< are now veritably new cities arisen phoenix-like from their own ashes. One who has not seen them can have littb conception of so astonishing a resurreo' tion. Think of a'metropolis like Tokio ten miles long, and five wide, with a population of nearly three million, two-thirds of which was wiped out. now practically restored in less than six years 1 Even more so is Yokohama now. essentially a new city, with as well paved streets and . as efficient public appointments as any occidental . city, and even more modern in respect to traffic regulations. Traffic is well, directed from a high tower ai the corner of the street of all important crossings by red and white lights suspended over the centre of the crossing, any defiance of which mean' immediate arrest of the defender. From the same position trams are shunted from one line to another. Yokohama will eventually be one of the finevSt cities in Asia, even now Hong Kong alone being capable of comparison. Millions of money have gome into its widened streets, canals walled with masonry, and its noble public edifices. The businoss centre of Tokio is even more a vast array of colossal office buildings, all hives of financial activity.* In these new cities the foreigner finds everything to hand that he needs just as at home—food, clothing amusements, accommodation. In tho Tokio central railway station, the largest in Asia, there is a one million yen barber shop, one more evidence of Japan’s untiring devotion to detail. Japan’ greatest distinction is that she is the first nation to have succeeded in harmoniously blending the civilisations ol East and West; in her the twain have met and mingled. amicably despite poetic predictions to the countrary. This is quite evident in Japnn’s new cities no less than in all her modern life whore we see the old unchanging spirit of Japan adopting new means for expression and operation, but always adapting them to national ideas and needs. Japan is happily still herself though wearing foreign dress. Woman, the basal element in all civilisation is still Japanese, though' her hair is beginning to adopt Western fashions, but seldom to tbe -extent of bobbing it. Her husband thinks her mas* of hair more beautiful and less expensive than anything possible to tbe niillnor’s art and tbe Japanese woman agrees with her husband. Janan’s trying international and economic experiences during tbe last fifteen years have led her to tbe important discovery that ,investment in civic, commercial, and industrial efficiency is far more essential to national progress and stability than investment in armaments, "-’’bb even ten years ago consumed one half of her annual national revenue in the most unproductive of all enterprises.