894.00/541
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 23.]
Sir: Recent despatches from this Embassy, notably numbers 1079,45 1102,46 and 1116,47 have discussed the present-day chauvinism in Japan, have outlined the situation arising out of the naval problem, and have considered American prestige in relation to our interests in the Far East.
The general conclusion drawn is that there exists in Japan today a definite urge toward economic and political expansion in East Asia and, as a corollary, a growing pressure against the interests of western nations, including the interests of the United States, in this part of the world.
These despatches, logically, have examined the situation and the future outlook chiefly from the objective or foreign point of view rather than through the eyes of the Japanese themselves. But as there are two sides to every problem, it will perhaps help to focus the picture and to give a proper balance to our judgment if we try for a moment to put ourselves in their place and to visualize the outlook as they, the Japanese, see it.
[Page 844]Psychologically, the Japanese resent being considered on a different footing from other nations. They believe they occupy a position which entitles them to the same consideration in the Far East that the British and French claim in the affairs of Europe or even the United States in the Western Hemisphere, and they intend to assert and maintain this position with all the strength at their command.
In addition, or perhaps at the back of this attitude, is the expansionist urge due to the economic problem involved in the struggle for existence, the normal tendency and striving to achieve a higher standard of living and the acute competition inevitably arising therefrom. To a certain extent the Japanese are a revolutionary force in the Far East. They feel that the Western Powers have exploited China with little benefit to the Chinese; that there must be an end to this activity and that Japan is called to act. Besides, the Japanese believe that it will be profitable. With a larger sphere of activity Japanese industry and commerce will expand further and remove the spectre of restricted markets from their eyes. If this has to be done at others’ expense it cannot be helped. There is in the Japanese attitude something of the “manifest destiny” idea, or the point of view expressed by Kipling in his poems of the British Empire.
It therefore behooves us to examine this expansionist urge in Japan as the reasonable and logical operation of well-nigh irrepressible forces based on the underlying principle of self-preservation. We are apt to stress the military aspects of Japanese activity without carefully considering the driving impulse of the whole nation. If, from an examination of concrete evidence, we become convinced that Japan is faced with a national problem of the utmost gravity brought about primarily by natural developments, and that military covetousness is only one phase or expression of it, and if we furthermore become convinced that failing certain outlets which will act as safety valves, some sort of explosion or series of explosions along the lines of the Manchurian affair must inevitably occur, we may pause to consider the wisdom of basing our own policy toward Japan on two concurrent principles: (1) national preparedness for the purpose of protecting our legitimate interests in the Far East, and at the same time (2) a sympathetic, cooperative and helpful attitude toward Japan, based on larger considerations reaching into the future.
Four distinct factors in this connection should be given consideration:
- (1)
- Overpopulation.
- (2)
- Lack of natural resources.
- (3)
- Industrialization.
- (4)
- The rising standard of living.
We may consider these economic factors seriatim before drawing conclusions:
[Page 845]Overpopulation
According to the last official census of Japan Proper, taken in 1930, the population at that time was 64,450,005, an increase of 4,713,183 over the population at the time of the previous census (1925). The increase was therefore at the average rate of 942,636 or about 1.5 per cent per annum. The rate of increase does not show a decelerating tendency; in fact it has risen steadily from around .5 per cent per annum in the decade 1870–1880, to its present 1.5 per cent. The birthrate in Japan Proper in 1930 was 32.4 per thousand of the population, as compared with 18.1 in France, 17.5 in Germany and 16.8 in Great Britain. The density of population in Japan Proper in 1925 was 404 per square mile; by 1930 it had risen to 437 per square mile. This does not seem to be an excessive density when compared with the 678 per square mile in Belgium, 561 in Holland and 468 in the United Kingdom, but it should be remembered that whereas the land in Belgium, Holland and the United Kingdom is practically all arable or at least fit for human occupation, only about fifteen per cent of the area of Japan Proper is arable and little of the remainder is fit for anything but forests. The Japanese density of population can be better understood when compared with that of countries or States of the United States with somewhat similar mountainous characteristics. Thus Switzerland has a density of population of 251 per square mile, Norway 21, Sweden 35, California 22, Oregon 8, Washington 20 and Vermont 38.
There is no indication at present that the Japanese will be willing to accept birth control as a remedy for their excessive rate of population increase. At the same time, being an ambitious, active and progressive people, they are not willing to accept the lower standard of living which would normally accompany an increase in population without a corresponding increase in resources. A pressing need therefore exists to find work and livings—economic opportunity—for nearly a million persons each year. During the next generation, even if the population could be caused to stop increasing now, additional livings must be found for some twenty millions already born and now growing up. This is the basic urge behind the expansionist activities of the Japanese people, as it is an urge which cannot be satisfied by emigration (the emigration of Japanese labor is meeting obstacles throughout the world), nor by further development of the natural resources of Japan (a subject which is discussed in the following section), nor by colonization, as colonization in the surrounding territories in the Far East has been defeated by the lower standards of living of the peoples of those territories. Industrialization of the country has partly supplied the need for economic opportunity, but industrialization presupposes the existence of definite markets and [Page 846] thereby leads to territorial expansion in one form or another, as is described in a later section of this despatch.
Natural Resources of Japan
The assertion is often made that Japan is poor in natural resources. This assertion is subject to many qualifications. The country has not sufficient resources of its own to provide over an extended period for an expanding population with a rising standard of living and a determination to play an ever increasing part in world economic development. It has, however, resources of no mean importance, which can take care of most of the immediate needs of the people and which form a reservoir of strength that is frequently not appreciated by outside observers. The nation must reach out into the world for many raw materials to feed its expanding industry, and to provide opportunity for development to a restless and ambitious population; it must go into the outside world to find markets for the sale of many of its products if it is to continue its progress, but it is a mistake to regard Japan as weak and without native resources of value.
At the moment, Japan is able to feed itself, so long as the people are willing to keep their diet within the traditional simple fare of their ancestors: rice and barley, fish, vegetables and a relish, with tea and perhaps sake to complete the meal. This has been accomplished by increasing the productiveness of farms through better fertilizing and more effective irrigation methods. This increase cannot, of course, continue indefinitely, as marginal lands are already being used, but for the time being, Japan is not in need of imports to feed the population of the country.
One agricultural commodity, raw silk, is exported in large quantities. Its production is a subsidiary occupation of approximately two million farming families, and its reeling gives occupation to several hundred thousand people during the reeling season. This rural industry is the farmer’s cash crop over a large part of central Japan.
Animal husbandry is making headway, especially in Hokkaido, and domestic made dairy products are more and more available in the markets. This branch of agriculture is developing slowly, as the area available for suitable pasturage is limited, due to the poor quality of the grass. The soil of Japan is largely friable and acid in character, making poor pasture grass.
Fruit in many varieties is available at moderate prices. Oranges are plentiful enough to be exported.
While restricted, from the American point of view, Japanese agriculture is in most respects in a healthy condition, is able to feed the country, and is branching out into new fields. This is contrary to much that has been stated in regard to Japanese agriculture, but it [Page 847] seems to be the fact. Certain phases of Japanese rural life will be discussed later.
About one half of the area of Japan is classed as forest. Much of the forest is in mountainous regions so remote from population centers that builders find it cheaper, under normal commercial conditions, to import pine and cedar for building purposes. The imports of timber during the past few years have varied from about two-thirds to nine-tenths of the domestic production. There is also some export of timber, amounting on the average to perhaps one-seventh of the domestic production. It seems probable that Japan could, in case of necessity, house its population and provide such wooden utensils as are needed from its own production. Forestry is well developed. A good deal of pulp is imported for paper and rayon making, but the domestic paper pulp production usually far exceeds the amount imported.
Japan is poor in mineral resources. There is enough coal produced for domestic consumption. Other minerals are not available in any quantity, aside from copper, of which there are some relatively large deposits.
There is abundant water power in Japan, although the irregularity in the flow of streams, and the porous nature of much of the rock formation in the country have impeded its development to some extent. However, Japan can keep its factories operating, so far as motive power is concerned, from its own resources, taking both coal and water power into account.
Japan, however, has none or very little of the other products which enter into international commerce today. It is a country of relatively limited natural resources which are being utilized very nearly to the full. It must import raw materials for textiles other than silk and the bulk of the raw materials which enter into general manufacture on a large scale. It is driven by its growing needs into the field of international trade on a larger and larger scale.
Industrialization
Japan has only recently demonstrated in a manner to bring consternation to Western industrialists its ability to compete successfully with the most advanced nations in all lines of economic endeavor, but as a matter of fact the process of preparation for greater economic power has been under way in Japan for many years. The far-sighted statesmen of the Meiji Era realized that, if Japan hoped to become a world power, the country must develop its industrial and commercial resources—must sell its labor to pay for needed materials and must be able to manufacture within the country equipment and supplies for military use. Industrialization was first attempted along lines deemed necessary by the military, but it gradually passed beyond this [Page 848] stage and became a permanent and important factor in the life of the nation. The people proved themselves to have great organizing capacity, unusual manual dexterity and sufficient mechanical ability to operate industrial machinery. The World War, due to the concentration of the industrial nations of the west on supplying the vast armies engaged in the war, gave Japanese industries a tremendous impetus, and Japanese goods produced by mass-production methods began to appear in great quantities in the world’s markets. Since December, 1931, to the natural Japanese economic advantages of excellent organizing capacity, cheap, dextrous labor, and geographical proximity to large markets, has been added the advantage of depreciated currency, with the result that Japanese goods are offered at prices which have demoralized the world’s markets and have brought panic to the industrialists of the West. At the same time Japanese ships are capturing a considerable share of the carrying trade of the world and Japanese capital is reaching out, particularly in the Far East, for new opportunities.
The Japanese feel that their tremendous progress in manufacturing goods for export is not due to a series of fortuitous circumstances but to hard work, technical progress and intelligent planning, and therefore they are inclined to resent the obstacles which are arising throughout the world to their commerce. They are proud of their ability to manufacture good merchandise at low prices. They ascribe, as the principal reasons for their success in meeting the industrial competition of the world, their low labor costs, their technical skill, their low capital charges, their efficient management, their depreciated yen, and, above all, their determination and enthusiasm.
The low Japanese labor costs, they point out, do not constitute a new phenomenon. Low labor cost is a continuing factor, due to the cheaper—not lower—methods of living of the Japanese people, to their patience and to their manual skill. Even therefore, before and after the depreciation of the yen, their labor costs were and will be much below those of Western countries. The Japanese are proud of their technical progress. They point with pride to the immense efficiency of their spinning and weaving mills, their rayon factories, their steamship lines, their electrical plants and their railways. They feel that their progress in technical ability is well-earned and should not be resented by other industrial nations.
Likewise they attribute their low capital and other overhead charges to intelligent planning and efficient management. But they also attribute much of their success to the national determination and enthusiasm. From the highest to the lowest, the people are united in an almost fanatical zeal for the promotion of their nation’s power in the world, commercial as well as military and political. It is impossible [Page 849] to say how much this factor contributes to the production efficiency of the Japanese people, but it undoubtedly is an important factor.
Thus the Japanese view their industrial and commercial success as something which they have earned through their own hard work, intelligence and national determination. It would be difficult to deny the truth of this thesis, although the Japanese perhaps do not give sufficient credit to the adventitious aid of their depreciated yen exchange and rarely, if ever, mention another very important factor, namely, the docility and compliance with regimentation of their labor supply.
Industrialization, however, cannot be economically successful unless adequate markets for the products of industrialization are available. And the Japanese industrialists are finding their expansion meeting with opposition in many countries, especially in regions such as British India and the Netherlands Indies, which have been considered in the past by Western industrial nations as constituting more or less exclusive markets for their own products. In addition to definite barriers to further expansion of their overseas trade, the Japanese see vast economic blocs being formed, such as those of the British Commonwealth of Nations, France and its colonies, the Netherlands and its colonies, and the United States and its insular possessions. To the extent that such blocs are successful in giving preference to trade within the group forming the bloc, Japan’s opportunities for trade expansion are reduced.
Faced with these barriers and restrictions upon their further economic expansion, the Japanese feel that the world frowns upon their hard-won success in industrialization and commercial development, just as the world has in the past frowned upon their territorial expansion and upon their attempts to relieve the pressure at home by emigration to other lands. At the same time, because of their rapidly increasing population and the dearth of their natural resources, they feel that economic expansion is of vastly greater importance to them than to other nations, such as the United States, which have lower natural rates of population increase and much greater natural resources upon which to rely.
Higher Living Standards
A decided factor in the life of Japan today is the rising standard of living. This factor is difficult to define accurately. It is however an active force which affects all phases of life in the country and goes hand in hand with a higher moral tone in Japanese society. This moral development has accompanied the economic development elsewhere noted in this report. Statistical data on living standards are [Page 850] not readily available, but it may safely be said that the average Japanese family lives better today than ever before. There is a greater variety of food, a wider choice of clothing and in the larger cities, much better housing than was the case a generation ago. One indication of higher living standards is education. According to the Japan Year Book, school attendance, including attendance at higher institutions of learning, increased from 10,435,364 in 1920–21 to 12,571,748 in 1930–31, the latest year for which full statistics are available. This is about what would be expected, as the population, according to the same authority, increased from 55,963,053 in 1920 to 64,450,005 in 1930. However, the attendance at Universities increased from 21,915 in 1920–21 to 89,607 in 1930–31. The last figure is somewhat misleading, as a number of schools were raised to University grade in the meantime; but after making all allowances, there has been a tremendous growth in the number of young persons seeking higher education. The higher technical schools also show a phenomenal growth, although the figures are not so startling as those of the Universities. This indicates that the nation is able to support a higher educational standard and that more families are in a position to give a broader education to their children. The higher standard of life, both moral and material, requires a higher income for its support.
Another illustration is to be found in the attention now paid to the peasantry. Much has been written lately of the hard lot of the rural classes in Japan. Their lot is hard, but it is only recently that it has become an object of interest or concern to the country at large. The northern districts of Honshu, the Main Island of Japan, for example, are mountainous and unfertile. The rural inhabitants of this region have always been close to the margin of subsistence. Unfavorable crops have meant privation for the majority and starvation for many. Their moral standards have been on a level with their living conditions. While it would not be correct to say that families have counted on the sale of their daughters for income, it is none the less true that the amusement centers of Tokyo and other large cities have been largely recruited from young girls from the Northern prefectures. The extreme poverty and distress which has faced them made girls willing to accept any opportunity to escape from home, while their parents were willing to part with them when it meant money in the home. Many a well known drama and story in Japan is woven around conditions such as this. In the autumn and winter of 1905–1906 there was a famine of considerable proportions in this region. The newspaper accounts of the time indicate that it was severe. There is evident, however, none of the moral indignation that accompanies the accounts of the distress now raging in the same region. The Government has taken measures to feed the population [Page 851] and to prevent the traffic in girls, a condition which aroused little or no comment a few years ago.
The public concern over rural conditions seems to indicate a higher moral standard on the part of the public. It seems improbable that rural distress in Japan is greater now than it was a generation ago. The explanation appears to be that improved conditions throughout the country have raised the public tone, so that a situation which was received with indifference by a former generation, now arouses the moral sense of the nation.
This rural distress has been to very great extent the backbone of cheap industrial labor in Japan. Grinding poverty has driven young people to the cities. Girls could be obtained to work in mills and factories and boys could be recruited as day laborers for what appears to us to be a pittance. Ordinary labor can be obtained for from 45 to 50 cents a day, and skilled workmen in the textile trades for less than one dollar a day, plus certain bonuses which may amount to 25 per cent in some cases. These are undoubtedly very low wages. They represent, however, the difference between actual starvation at home, and the comparative comfort of a barrack-like boarding house in a city. The workers are really better off than they would be on the barren hillsides where they were born. They have a standard of living which is remarkably cheap, and while restricted from our point of view, it is affluence compared to the penury which drives them from the country. The abundance of this type of labor—hardy, used to cheap living and discipline—has enabled Japan to build up its present industrial plant, and to invade world markets with its products.
Industrialization has enabled the Japanese people to raise their living standards. It is true that Western standards have risen at the same time, and that present living conditions in Japan are considerably below those in Europe or America. Still, viewed from the Japanese standpoint, there has been a decided improvement in the life of the people in the past generation, an improvement which is still continuing, which the Japanese are determined shall not stop, and which is an important element in their drive for foreign trade.
Conclusion
The above résumé attempts to visualize the situation in Japan as the Japanese themselves see it. The Japanese see themselves as an overpopulated nation, but as a nation of active, intelligent and progressive people, anxious to find a “place in the sun”, and to raise their standard of living. At the same time they see themselves as badly handicapped by limited workable natural resources and by a lack of economic opportunity within the territories which they control. They have tried emigration and colonization, but without any considerable success. They also tried industrialization, and have been [Page 852] successful through a combination of patient, hard work, intelligent planning and fortunate circumstances, only to find the world gradually closing its markets to their products.
It cannot be doubted that these ingredients form a highly explosive mixture, and, also, that the nations of the world owe it to themselves and to Japan to endeavor to formulate policies which will prevent the mixture from exploding. It is possible that the solution of the problem can be found in the Christmas message of the Secretary of State:
“Peace can be obtained by bringing contentment to the peoples of the world. They can be made content by assuring the satisfaction of their needs, removing from them the oppressive fear of hunger and privation. … If we have the wisdom and imagination to do this we shall then satisfy the age-old longing for plenty and bring into being its corollary, peace.”
The satisfaction of Japanese needs will require, primarily, more economic elbow-room for the nation. Manchuria will probably supply the needed opportunities for some fifteen or twenty years, but after that time it will certainly be necessary for them to extend their economic “life line.” They can, as in the past, do this by means of military force, but further Japanese military adventures in the Far East would very probably result in a tremendous clash with the Western powers, in which, presumably, Japan would be crushed. It is not likely, however, that such a vigorous nation as Japan would remain crushed for more than one or two generations, after which the process would have to be repeated. The problem confronting Western nations, therefore, when reduced to its simplest terms, would appear to be whether to endeavor to preserve Western interests in the Far East for a generation or two by defeating Japan in a war, or whether to endeavor to satisfy Japan’s urge for economic expansion by granting larger markets and greater opportunity for Japanese enterprise in the territories controlled by the Western nations. The second alternative, of course, would be accompanied by steady pressure to preserve our policies relating to the Far East and to demilitarize the Japanese nation.
It will not be an easy task for the world to find economic elbowroom for a population increasing as rapidly as that of Japan, but on the other hand it cannot be expected that the urge for economic expansion in Japan will continue to be so strong in the future as it is at present. A rising standard of living will tend to check the birth rate and will diminish Japan’s powers of economic competition, with the result that Japan’s position in the economic world will eventually tend to become stabilized, or to approximate Western standards.
Respectfully yours,