Page 13 Advertisements Column 3

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17973, 19 March 1930, Page 13

• • / 1\ i- —.. - CONSIDERING that Japan is one of the Great Powers, it is curious how little people in this country know about life there. When the transformation took place in the middle of last century (it is only about fifty years ago that the feudal system was abolished), there began to be issued a number of books by travellers, but these were mainly descriptive of Japan of the older day. I ain, therefore, glad to recommend a little book by Dr. Ogata, published by Messrs Beann in the excellent “Self and Society” series at sixpence, where, in j-unall compass, you may bo able to get an idea how many resemblances and how many differences there are between this land of the East and a European country, writes the reviewer of “Reynold's Sunday News”: — In the streets and in the office Mr Suzuki is an almost exact replica of Mr Smith. His clothes are cut on a tolerable imitation of the Western manner. He must have chairs to sit upon, and for business purposes he finds a restaurant in the foreign style a more suitable background for the discussion of affairs. If ho belongs to the upper middle class ho will find a car a necessary addition to his equipment, and so on through all the necessaries or luxuries of the Western style of life. But, back agian on the spotless mats of his Japanese residence, and in company with Mrs Suzuki, who has not as yet accompanied him all tho way in the march westward, ho will wish very naturally to be Mr Suzuki proper. He will cast off the uncomfortable and most unsightly tubes and cylinders of the Western clothing, and don the loose, flowing kimono of old Japan. Moreover, he will wish to entertain his wife’s friends, and perhaps his own, in a completely Japanese environment, with its necessary corollary of ceremonial Japanese clothing and food and crockery. Ho must live, then, a more or less doublo life, and this, naturally enough, adds vastly to his expenditure. Just think what it would cost the average Briton, just to take the one item of clothes, if he were obliged to keep more or less completo wardrobes of both the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries. It is in retail trade, however, that one finds marked differences. In Tokio, for instance, one of the world's greatest cities, there is a retailer for every nine families and one shop for every porty peoplel Dr. Ogata is concerned with showing the progress of co-operation in Japan, and tho difficulties which have attended its establishment. There was cooperative finance and co-operative marketing; but neither of theso was designed 'to protect the consumer. Rather they were designed that he might better bo exploited. But the cooperative store is slowly making its way. Even so, out of a population of 70,000,000 there are only 125,000 members. But, even so, says Dr. Ogata, the moral effect is enormous. Capitalistic retailers have begun to seo tho red light, and in Kobe an anti-co-operativo organisation has been started. It is difficult to get tho Japanese to see that co-operation is not mixed up with Bolshevism, and so many look askance at it. On the other hand, to the keen young intellectuals co-opera-tion is too slow'. They want quick results, and so they tend to look rather to Moscow than to Rochdale. But Dr. Ogata is not discouraged, and he ends by saying:— I am convinced that the seeds planted by Robert Owen in far-aw'av England will have a harvest here in Japan of which he himself would bo justly proud. Why is it that well-to-do people think nothing of spending a guinea apiece on a dinner, and half a guinea or more for a stall at a revue, five shillings each way for a taxi, and a string , of half-crowns for all sorts of etcetraa i and oddments, chocolates and cigars included, whereas they stare at the baro idea of spending seven or eight shillings ou a book” asks Miss Clemenco Dane in “Tho Book Window.” “Yet a book, if rightly chosen, is a lasting friend and good company all tho time. I'm all for theatre-going, but, after all, you only go to the theatre for your 12/6; but your bought play or novel can 1) • read again and again. No, I suppose the truth is that people look upon reading and theatre-going purely as amusement, and reckon that to buy a book or buy an unnecessary new hat is equally extravagant.