To the Editor of the CRIMSON:
As a native of Japan, I was very much interested in Professor A. S. Hershey's article on the Japanese population question which appeared in the CRIMSON of November 30, 1921.
In attempting to present my own views regarding the great question of population confronting my country, I undertake to comment upon Professor Hershey's article, not in order to "justify past and possible future aggression on the part of Japan," but for the purpose of putting before the readers of the CRIMSON such information as will aid them in securing a fuller understanding of the complicated situation which Japan is today facing.
Professor Hershey's main thesis seems to be this: Japan's problem of over population is exaggerated. It is "merely an ex post facto explanation intended to justify past and possible future aggressions. Whatever validity it may once have had has largely ceased, and it is no longer applicable to present and future needs and conditions of Japan.
In proving his contention he employs the following reasoning: first, the Japanese are reacting to new and changed economic conditions of life; secondly, there is much land left in Japan proper to be cultivated for the nation's foodstuffs; and finally, that despite several efforts made by governmental authority to send part of the population out of Japan's main land, the result was not at all satisfactory, and, moreover, the people of Japan themselves seemed to be disinclined to migrate from their native land.
This, in effect, is Professor Hershey's thesis. Yet in spite of his vigorous and elaborate argument in contradicting the generally accepted view with reference to the density of the population in Japan, many readers of his article will be disappointed to learn that there is no sound foundation for his statement except that of more phraseology and rhetoric such as are unlikely to be found in such a paper as the CRIMSON.
Examples of unsound argument abound in Professor Hershey's article. For example, he says that the Japanese people are reacting to new and changed economic conditions; but who can draw the conclusion from this that there is no reason to believe that the Japanese people are suffering from density of population in the country?
Let me take an analogy for illustration: Suppose, here in Cambridge there is a workingman's family, whose income, by the reduction of wages or for other reasons, has been cut by 30 percent of its former total; we may say, for argument's sake, that the said family will try to get along with the new means of budget by dispensing with the outlay of comparatively unnecessary things, in order to sustain the lives of the family.
But who can say that the members of the said family are as happy as ever because they are adjusting themselves to the new condition of life.
Certianly it true that Japan is gradually ceasing to be predominantly agricultural and becoming more and more a trading and manufacturing nation? Nevertheless we have still to emphasize the fact that more than 60 per cent of the total population is engaged in the production of food stuffs at extremely low wages and, contrary to the view generally held by the American public, supplying their products at enormous high price to the Japanese consumer.
It is also true as Professor Hershey pointed out that there still remain considerable land for future cultivation and improvement; but this is true too in the case of Boston or Cambridge which have many "idie lots" in the very heart of the city. But everybody knows that the people in Boston or Cambridge do not and will not turn their vacant lots into wheat or corn fields unless and until the price of wheat or corn becomes so high to give them ample remuneration for the production of grain on such valuable plots. In the case of Japan the question is not whether she has more land for cultivation but whether she could produce more products from the new land with reasonable profit to both farmers and consumers. By borrowing the technical term of political economy, the question is whether she has reached the point from which the law of diminishing return begins to apply.
Attention may be called to the fact that in June, 1919, when the great disturbances--the rice riot so called occurred all over Japan proper as a result of the scarcity of rice with the consequently prohibitive price of this food to the average Japanese family, a law was passed to promote and encourage the farmers who engage in the reclamation of the country's waste lands. The law provided for a governmental guarantee of 6 percent interest upon the capital invested by its farmers. I must emphasize the fact that it was only because of this 6 percent guarantee that an increase in the amount of arable land has been brought about since then, and that since 1906, the cultivated area has been practically at a standstill.
College students who have an elementary knowledge of Economics and see these conditions of Japanese farming will not hesitate to give clear answer that Japanese farming has actually reached such a stage that every increase of produce is obtainable only by greater expenses than before.
I do not comment upon Professor Hershey's last reason, which he terms Japanese disinclination for migration, because, while I admit the characteristic disinclination of a people to leave their native land, our inquiry into the question of population is for the purpose of seeing how strong is the economic pressure and what are the effects upon the nation of an enormous increase in density of population without proportionate increase in material wealth. Just mere inquiry into the psychological attitude of the people--an attitude powerfully influenced by environmental and historical forces of the past 25 centuries shows that a purely economic explanation of the matter of Japanese emigration is not conclusive.
Turning now to my main theme I will first give a general survey of the economic condition of Japan--the relation between density of population and the high cost of foodstuffs.
Roughly speaking, the population of Japan is estimated at about 57,000,000 with a total area of 140,000,000 square miles, of which about 15,000,000 acres are supposed to be used for cultivation. For the purpose of illustration let us take the United States for comparison. The relative density of population in the two countries is as follows: In other words, the ratio of density between the two countries in the case of improved land is 11 to 1. However in the consideration of population from an economic point of view there is no significance in merely stating the figures as to the numbers of people in certain regions compared with others without taking account of other economic factors affected by the question of population. It is only when people cannot obtain a proportional increase of food in their own countries for their increasing population that the real and great significance of population manifests itself. It is absolutely futile to consider the condition of Boston as compared to New York by merely stating the number of the people per square mile in both cities, any more than it is useful to say that even the most populated localities in Japan "hardly surpass certain areas in Belgium, England and Germany" without reference to the economic and social situations in those places. This being the case, the matter of population may be made much more clear by answering two questions. First: How much does the nation have to pay for its food supply? And secondly: How will these prices affect the nation's economic welfare? Scenery and Farmers Any western travelers who have hastily passed through Japan proper in a train could not fail to admire the beautiful scenery of its mountains and rivers, but they seem to be few indeed, who are able to understand why and how the Japanese farmers are working so hard "from dark to dark," and doing so on the tops or slopes of the numerous hills and mountains, some as high as several hundred feet above sea level. It is in Japan that nature has given to 35,000,000 farm workers only 15,000,000 acres of arable land. It is also in Japan that more than 70 percent of the farmers are cultivating less than two and a half acres of land, while those who are given more than 15 acres constitute but 1.22 percent of the total number of farmers. High Yield of Land With such small shares of cultivated area they must exploit every inch of ground just as long as they can reap any profit from their efforts, and all means are to be tried in order to produce as much as possible from the small improved land of their holdings. Readers who see the following figures will not be surprised to learn the superior yields produced from Japanese fields as compared with others, if they keep in mind this statement regarding the Japanese farmer. The figures below give the comparative yields in various countries with the average value of the yield per hector in Italy as the base unit.
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