Show 15 what for get out a map of the united states and look at the space occupied by the state of california now imagine that a few more than halt the total population of the united states in eluding alaska and the insular pos sessions are living in the state of california and that california is en surrounded by water then you will begin to have an idea of the sit nation in japan but to make the conception true you will have to imagine california divided into four good sized islands and something more than 4 small ones the total area of california Is square miles the japanese is lands cover not quite the same amount of space the population of cabitor nia Is not qu te 1 japan num bers people in other words thirty times as many i people are living in the same space in japan as in california it the whole jolted states was as thickly populated rs is japan the pop illation of this country would be 1 human beings or 10 more than the present estimated of the earth or does that tell the whole story in order to gain a true idea of the situation of the japanese people you must take into consideration the fact that only a small percentage of the small area of the taip re is under cul in belgium which is even more thickly populated than is japan the proportion of cultivated land to the to tal area of the country Is 54 per cent in france it Is 50 per cent and in germany it Is 43 per cent but in tiny japan with its swarming m 1 lions without additions from immigration increases at the rate of half a million a ear only 14 per cent of the total area of the empire is under cultivation japan has always claimed that the small percentage of her area under cultivation Is not due to any lack of industry but to the fact that so large a part of the empire is made up of vol canic mountains and rod slopes which cannot be made arable in spite of this fact however ja pan is still chiefly an agricultural country in fact until the ports of the island empire were thrown open to commerce its great populate on lived almost exclusively on what was raised on the little patches of farming land amounting in the whole empire to a total of less than one third the area of the state of illinois added to the product of the fisheries A japanese farm would make one of our western farmers laugh in de cislon As one traveler says there are no farms in japan there are only gardens A farm of twelve acres would be considered extremely large in japan the average holding tor the whole of agricultural japan Is only a fraction over two acres naturally the farmers of japan have no hired men they and their families cultivate the tiny patch of ground they have no cattle or other live stock their chief instrument of cultivation Is the spade and working entirely by hand they bring their bittle farms to a high state of cultivation A japanese farmer needs little to sustain life it he is rich enough to a big farm of twelve acres he may get an income of from 50 to 60 a year in addition he and his family may add to their income by devoting their spare time to the production 0 silk indigo and cotton if he should in the busy season need the assistance of some outside helpers in gathering his harvest he can hire all the male peasant laborers he wants at wages of 16 cents a day while female helpers will be satisfied with 9 cents a day small as these japanese farms are it Is a fact that the taxes paid by their owners furnished about half the total income of the mikado s govern ment at present the tax rate Is 3 per cent of the assessed valuation of the cultivated lands large as this may seem to american farmers it Is as nothing to the taxes paid by japa nese farmers in the old days of the feudal system which went to pieces in 1867 for a time the government took two fifths of the total crop as its share of the taxes later the gov share was raised to one half and at the same time those farmers who rented the land they tilled were forced to turn over one halt of the re kalning halt of the crop to their grasping landlords thousands of japanese are cm plowed in the fisheries as is natural in an island population the product of the fisheries furnishes a large pro portion of the food of the people and with n recent years canneries havia been established and modern methods of taking the fish largely adopted the ancient and extremely na tive method of catching smelts and other comparach com ely small fish is still however followed on some of the more remote islands the men en in this industry go to work at ter nightfall and depend on the glare of torches to attract the fish to the top of the nater jn each boat are carried several tame cormorants these great b ads by nature men pi age over into the sea and come up with struggling fish in their beaks they have been taught once the fish is captured to swim at once to their master s boat and yield the fish into his hands b t to make sure that the cormorant will not forget his lesson a firm iron ring is fastened about the throat of the bird so that it Is impossible for it to swallow it it would women and girls are largely em plowed in the fisheries on some of the remote islands the fisher girls armed with a knife and carrying a large bamboo basket attached to their shoulders swim out into the sea for a considerable distance and load their basi ets with shellfish and edible sea weed which they procure by diving and detaching them from the rocks to wh c they cl ng the w ages of a fisherman are about 19 cents a day there are na rich men in japan as judged by the standards of the unit ed states there are only two men in the empire who pay an income tas on over a year more astonish ing still to american eyes are the statements that there are only thir teen men in the empire who pay on 0 a year sixty seven on 12 ninety six on S and on 0 o out of every 1000 in the empire there are only seven who have incomes which equal isdo a year yet the people of this comparatively poor little country buy from the outside world goods to the yearly average of 7 each the total wealth of the emp re of japan has been estimated as follows lands 3 mines 50 live stock 40 buildings furniture railroads 1 5 ind merchant ships specie masce laneous goods and products total V 5 the russian empire has a total pop of or not quite three times as many as japan the dominions of the russian empire em brace a total of 8 3 9 square miles or fifty five times as much as japan if the territory of russia as as close ly settled as is that of japan it would have room to spare for all the people now in the world korea which plays the part of the bone over which the russian and japanese armies are fighting has a total area of SO square miles about the same as the state of ne braska but like all the countries ot the far east it is thickly populated having 10 people as compared with the 1 of nebraska chi cago tribune |