"Our mode of living is not suited to the colder climate," an agricultural professor said to me. "Poor emigrants do not have money enough to build houses with stoves and properly fitting windows."
To what extent the modified farming methods rendered necessary by the Hokkaido climate have had a deterring effect on would-be settlers I do not know. It has never been demonstrated that the Japanese farmer prefers arduous amphibious labour to the dry-land farming in which most of the world's land workers are engaged; but the cultivation of paddy or a large proportion of paddy is his traditional way of farming. Rice culture also means to him the production of the crop which, when weather conditions favour, is more profitable than any other. In Hokkaido, as we have seen, the remunerative kind of agriculture is mixed farming, and, in a large part of the country, rice cannot be grown at all. Against objections to Hokkaido on the ground of the strangeness of its farming may probably be set, however, the cheapness of land there.
An undoubted hindrance to the colonisation of Hokkaido has been land scandals and land grabbing. Many of what the late Lord Salisbury called the "best bits" are in the hands of big proprietors or proprietaries. Some large landowners no doubt show public spirit. But their class has contrived to keep farmers from getting access to a great deal of land which, because of its quality and nearness to practicable roads and the railway, might have been worked to the best advantage. In various parts of Japan I heard complaints. "The land system in Hokkaido," one man in Aichi said to me, "is so queer that land cannot be got by the families needing it, I mean good land." Again in Shikoku I was assured that "the most desirable parts of the Hokkaido are in the hands of capitalists who welcome tenants only." In more than one part of northern Japan I was told of emigrants to Hokkaido who had "returned dissatisfied." A charge made against the large holder of Hokkaido land is that he is an absentee and a city man who lacks the knowledge and the inclination to devote the necessary capital to the development of his estate. Of late the rise in the value of timber has induced not a few proprietors to interest themselves much more in stripping their land of trees than in developing its agricultural possibilities.
The development of Hokkaido may also have been slowed down to some extent by a lower level of education among the people than is customary on most of the mainland, by a rougher and less skilful farming than is common in Old Japan and by the existence of a residuum which would rather "deal" or "let George do it" or cheat the Ainu than follow the laborious colonial life. But no cause has been more potent than a lack of money in the public treasury. I was told that for five years in succession Tokyo had cut down the Hokkaido budget. Necessary public work and schemes for development have been repeatedly stopped. At a time when the interests of Hokkaido demand more farmers and there is a general complaint of lack of labour, at a time when there are persistent pleas for oversea expansion, there are in Japan twice or thrice as many people applying for land in the island as are granted entry. The blunt truth is that the State has felt itself compelled to spend so much on military and naval expansion that the claims of Hokkaido for the wherewithal for better roads, more railway line and better credit have often been put aside. [[273]]
One thing is certain, that slow progress in the development of Hokkaido gives an opening to the critics of Japan who doubt whether her need for expansion beyond her own territory is as pressing as is represented by some writers. However this may be, Hokkaido is stated to take only a tenth of the overplus of the population of Old Japan. The number of emigrants in 1913 was no larger than the number in 1906. A usual view in Hokkaido is that the island can hold twice as many people as it now contains. "When 3,625,000 acres are brought into cultivation," says an official publication, "Hokkaido will be able easily to maintain 5,000,000 inhabitants on her own products."
Very much of what has been achieved in Hokkaido has been done under the stimulating influence of the Agricultural College, now the University. The northern climate seems to be conducive to mental vigour in both professors and students. If in moving about Hokkaido one is conscious of a somewhat materialistic view of progress it may be remembered that an absorption in "getting on" is characteristic of colonists and their advisers everywhere. It is not high ideals of life but bitter experience of inability to make a living on the mainland which has brought immigrants to Hokkaido. As time goes on, the rural and industrial development may have a less sordid look.[[274]] At present the visitor who lacks time to penetrate into the fastnesses of Hokkaido and enjoy its natural beauties brings away the unhappy impression which is presented by a view of man's first assault on the wild.
But he must still be glad to have seen this distant part of Japan. He finds there something stimulating and free which seems to be absent from the older mainland. It is possible that when Hokkaido shall have worked out her destiny she may not be without her influence on the development of Old Japan. Those of the settlers who are reasonably well equipped in character, wits and health are not only making the living which they failed to obtain at home; they are testing some national canons of agriculture. Face to face with strangers and with new conditions, these immigrants are also examining some ideals of social life and conduct which, old though they are, may not be perfectly adapted to the new age into which Japan has forced herself. One evening in Hokkaido I saw a lone cottage in the hills. At its door was the tall pole on which at the Bon season the lantern is hung to guide the hovering soul of that member of the family who has died during the year. The settler's lantern, steadily burning high above his hut, was an emblem of faith that man does not live by gain alone which the hardest toil cannot quench. In whatever guise it may express itself, it is the best hope for Hokkaido and Japan.
During my stay in the island I had an opportunity of meeting some of the most influential men from the Governor downwards; also several interesting visitors from the mainland. We often found ourselves getting away from Hokkaido's problems to the general problems of rural life.
Of the good influences at work in the village, the first I was once more assured, was "popular education and school ethics, a real influence and blessing." The second was "the disciplinary training of the army for regularity of conduct." ("The influence of officers on their young soldiers is good, and they give them or provide them with lectures on agricultural subjects and allow them time to go in companies to experimental farms.")
Someone spoke of "the influence of the religion of the past." "The religion of the past!" exclaimed an elderly man; "in half a dozen prefectures it may be that religion is a rural force, but elsewhere in the Empire there is a lack of any moral code that takes deep root in the head. After all Christians are more trustworthy than people drinking and playing with geisha."