CROWDED JAPAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 December 1921, Page 11

CROWDED JAPAN.

THE RISE OF INDUSTRY NOT ROOM FOR THE PEOPLE. Interesting observations on Japan were made recently by Mr. George Shirtcliffe, who lias just/ returned from a journey which included three weeks in Japan. Mr. Shirtcliffe said he was mudh impressed by the progressiveness of the Japanese and by their ambition to maintain their new status as one of the Great Powers. It was interesting to learn that they were to launch no less than seventeen warsOiips of different classes before the end of the present year. It remained to be seen to what extent the programme would be affected by the Washington Conference; but unless the Conference led to very substantial limitation of Japan’s navy, he felt that trouble in the Pacific_was bound to follow 'sooner of later. Japan had already annexed Korea and controlled Southern Manchuria; and she had important interests in Siberia, while she had undoubtedly had ambitious towards China. These might be considerably modified by t'he Washington Conference. Industrially, Japan had made very substantial progress. Yokohama and Kobe were very large ports, and Osaka, which was described as the Manchester of the East, was an exceedingly busy town. The traveller approaching it by train saw nothing but a forest of tall factory chimneys, and it had an enormous output of manufactured goods, notably silks, cotton goods, and superphosphates. “The whole of Japan,” Mr. -Shirtcliffe went on, “is intensely cultivated and heavily fertilised. The landjs subdivided into such small areas that it is sold by the square yard. Rice is the principal cro-p, but although it is grown wherever it can possibly be produced, there is never enough,, and large quantities have to be imported. This indicates the enormous pressure of the population on the food supply. Japan proper is about as large as New Zealand, and it contains about fifty million people, with an annual natural increase of about a million. One can quite understand, therefore, Japan’s need for territorial expansion.”