In natural resources Japan is not well to do, it must be frankly said. Examine the country in as friendly a spirit as one may, little is developed to support any statement that the country may become prosperous from the products of her own soil. In truth Japan is nearly as unproductive as Greece and Norway, for only sixteen per cent. of her soil is arable. The mountain ranges and peaks and terraced hills that make the country scenically attractive to the tourist come near to prohibiting agriculture. The lowlands, separating seacoast from the foothills, and the valleys generally, are given over to rice culture, and these contribute largely towards sustaining the people. Where valleys are narrow, and on hillside patches, cultivation is carried on wholly by hand. In recent years phosphates and artificial fertilizers have been encouraged by the government, and with the educational work now in hand science may give an increase of crops from the circumscribed tillable area. The country's forests cannot be sacrificed, and grazing lands for flocks and herds scarcely exist.
A recent magazine writer, holding a doleful view of Japan's agricultural condition, wholly overlooked the silk and tea crops in his search for native products, an error obviously fallen into through the fact that these are not raised on what governmental reports call "tillable ground,"--meaning that they are produced outside the sixteen per cent. arable area. Silk is Japan's important salable crop, two thirds of which is exported in its raw state. In the past few years the silk exports have averaged $55,000,000. Japan grows the tea consumed in the country, and sends annually $6,500,000 worth to market.
If the rice crop might be exported it would realize $200,000,000 each year. But no food may be sent abroad, for it is a sad fact that Japan is capable of feeding only two thirds of her own people. It is necessary to import foodstuffs to the extent of about $47,000,000 a year. The Japanese benefit by the compensating supply of fish secured from the seas washing the shores of the Island Empire. When it is realized that Japan's rapidly-growing population cannot be sustained by her soil and fisheries, the real reason for battling against Russia's aggression on the mainland is understood, for ten years hence, Japan's crowding millions, confined to her own islands, would experience the pangs of hunger. The Mikado and his councilors foresaw this.