INTRODUCTORY
SOME OF THE ISSUES OF THE CONFLICT
The deeper significance of the present dramatic struggle between Russia and Japan over territories belonging to neither of the contestants cannot perhaps be understood, until we examine some of the issues at stake between them. The more fundamental of these issues, however, as in many another international crisis, seem to be oftener understood than expressed, and hence understood only vaguely, although it may fairly be said that they constitute the very forces which have with irresistible certainty brought the belligerents into collision. For Japan, the issues appear to be only partly political, but mainly economical; and perhaps no better clue to the understanding, not only of the present situation, but also, in general, of the activities at home and abroad of the Japanese people, could be found than in the study of these profound material interests.
Among the most remarkable tendencies of Japan’s economic life of recent years has been the enormous increase of her population, along with an immense growth of her trade and industries. The number of her inhabitants increased from 27,200,000, as estimated in 1828, to only 34,000,000 in 1875, but since that year it has risen so fast that it is to-day 46,305,000[[1]]—exclusive of the 3,082,404[[1]] in Formosa and the Pescadores—and is increasing now at the annual rate of nearly 600,000. At the same time, the foreign trade of Japan has grown from 49,742,831 yen in 1873 to 606,637,959 yen in 1903. Up to the end of May, 1904, the total amount showed 274,012,437 yen, as compared with the 248,506,103 yen of the same period of 1903.[[2]] The significance of these figures must be seen in the light of the important fact that the bulk of the increase in population and trade has been due to the decisive change of the economic life of the nation from an agricultural to an industrial stage. The new population seems to increase far more rapidly in the urban than in the rural districts, for if we consider as urban the inhabitants of communities containing each more than three thousand people, the ratio of the urban population to the rural may be estimated as 1 to 3. If only towns of more than 10,000 inhabitants each are included in the urban class, it is seen that their population increases annually 5 or 6 per cent., while the corresponding rate with the rural communities never rises above 3 per cent. and is usually much lower.[[3]] This comparatively rapid growth of the cities also indicates that the new population must be mainly supported by commerce and manufacture.
In 1903, 84.6 per cent. of the total export trade of Japan consisted of either wholly or partly manufactured articles.[[4]] On the other hand, agriculture has progressed only slowly,[[5]] and is no longer able either to support the increased population or to produce enough raw articles for the manufactures. The average annual crop of rice may be put at 210 million bushels, and that of barley, rye, and wheat, collectively called mugi, at 94.3 million bushels, while the average annual consumption of these cereals may safely be estimated, respectively, at 228.3 and 106.7 million bushels. In years of poor crops, the importation of rice, wheat, and flour amounts to large figures; as, for instance, in 1903, they together were imported to the value of about 67 million yen.[[6]] Raw material and food-stuffs, consisting of cotton, wool, rice, flour and starch, beans and oil-cakes, the importation of all of which was next to nothing twenty years ago, were in 1903 supplied from abroad to the value of 169,600,000 yen, or 53.5 per cent. of the total imports of Japan.[[7]] Japan will not only always have to rely upon foreign countries for the supply of these articles, but also have to import them in ever increasing quantities. Nor does agriculture occupy in the national finances the position it once did, for in 1875 the land tax, the incidence of which fell, as it still falls, very largely on the farmer, supplied 78 per cent. of the total revenue of the state, while the percentage fell, in the estimated budget for the fiscal year 1902–3, to 16, the actual amount also decreasing during the interval from 67.7 to 37 million yen, and the expenditures of the government, on the other hand, increasing from 73.4 million in 1874, to the enormous figure of 223.18 million yen in 1904–5.[[8]]
No one can say a cheerful word about agriculture in Japan or the life of her farmer. Exclusive of Formosa, the development of which seems to lie in the direction of industry and trade rather than agriculture, less than 13,000,000 acres are under cultivation,[[9]] or, about 13 per cent. of the extent of the country, while the arable area of the land cannot possibly be increased by more than 10,500,000 acres,[[10]] so that the per capita share of arable land is less than one half of an acre,[[11]] which is even below the corresponding rate in England and less than one half of that in China. Japan’s agricultural life can, however, be no more intensively improved than extensively enlarged. The sedimentary soil so well adapted to the rice cultivation and so abundantly blessed with moisture[[12]] is too minutely and carefully tilled, the climate conditions are too cleverly made use of,[[13]] and, above all, the lots of land are too diminutive,[[14]] to make the importation of new machinery and methods always profitable or desirable.[[15]] The day-laborers on the farm receive wages ranging between nine and fifteen cents, though the latter have risen more than 100 per cent. during the last fifteen years.[[16]] With this meagre income, some of the laborers have to support their aged parents, wives, and children. The tenants, whose number bears the ratio of about two to one[[17]] to that of the proprietors, live literally from hand to mouth, and cannot always afford even the necessary manure, and the proprietor’s profit hardly rises above 5 per cent., while the capital he employs pays an interest of 15 to 30 per cent.[[18]] and his local and central taxes further reduce his income. The farmer would in many cases be unable to subsist, were it not possible for him, as it fortunately is, to try his hand at silk-culture or some other subsidiary occupation.
Japan’s agriculture, then, can neither be much extended nor be greatly improved, can neither satisfy the old population nor support the new, and, above all, can only produce smaller and smaller portion of the necessary raw material for her growing industries. Under these circumstances, it is becoming more evident every year that the time is forever past when the nation could rely solely upon agriculture for subsistence. It is hardly necessary to repeat the well-known law of population—which is at the root of our subject—that every advance in the economic life of a nation creates a situation which is capable of supporting a larger population than in the preceding stage. What agriculture cannot support, industry and trade may. Japan’s growing population may only be supported, as it has already begun to be, by an increased importation of raw material and food-stuffs and an increased exportation of manufactures. Trade statistics unmistakably show that such markets for her manufactures and such supply regions of her raw and food articles are found primarily in East Asia, with which the commercial relations of Japan have grown 543 per cent. since 1890, as compared with the 161 per cent.[[19]] increase of the American and the 190 per cent. increase of the European trade,[[20]] until the East Asiatic trade amounted in 1903 to 295,940,000 yen in value, or 48.7 per cent. of the entire foreign trade of Japan.[[21]] The following table gives a comparison of the importation in the years 1882, 1902, and 1903, of what may be considered as primarily East Asiatic products:[[22]]—
| 1882 | 1902 | 1903 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cotton | 467,249 | yen | 79,784,772 | yen | 69,517,894 | yen |
| Wool | 3,397,564 | 4,811,811 | ||||
| Rice | 134,838 | 17,750,817 | 51,960,033 | |||
| Wheat | 240,050 | 4,767,832 | ||||
| Flour | 3,278,324 | 10,324,415 | ||||
| Beans | 4,956,000 | 7,993,411 | ||||
| Oil-cakes | 44,468 | 10,121,712 | 10,739,359 | |||
From these eloquent facts, the conclusion would seem tenable that, should the markets of East Asia be closed, Japan’s national life would be paralyzed, as her growing population would be largely deprived of its food and occupation. These markets, then, must be left as open as the circumstances permit, if Japan would exist as a growing nation. Observe here the tremendous significance for Japan of the principle of the “open door” as applied to East Asia—the principle, in a more accurate language, of the equal opportunity in East Asia for the economic enterprise of all foreign nations.[[23]]
In this great problem Manchuria and Korea occupy, perhaps, the most important position, for they together receive a large portion of the cotton yarn and cotton textiles exported from Japan, besides several other manufactured goods and coal, and in return supply Japan with much of the wheat and rice, and practically all of the millet, beans, and oil-cakes, imported into the country. Let us briefly demonstrate these statements by figures. First, consider the exportation of cotton yarns and textiles from Japan to Manchuria and Korea. It is rather difficult from the material on hand to estimate the exact ratio which the import of these articles from Japan into Korea and Manchuria bears to the total import of the same articles from all nations. In the case of Korea, we can make an approximate estimate, as we possess both the export values in Japan and import values in Korea, but with regard to Manchuria, we know only the quantities, but not the values, of the cotton goods imported. By assuming, however, that 40 per cent. of these goods imported by the Chinese Empire from Japan go to North China (of which Manchuria is here considered by far the most important part), it may be said, roughly, that in 1903 about 6 per cent. of the cotton yarn exported from Japan went to Korea and perhaps 40 per cent. to North China. The average import of this article during the past two years was probably 1,200,000 yen in Korea and 8,000,000 yen in North China, making the total about 36 per cent. of the export value in Japan. On the same basis of calculation, the average importation of cotton textiles from Japan during the past three years was 3,190,000 yen in Korea and 765,000 yen in North China, or about 69.5 per cent. of the entire export of these articles from Japan. These figures are only tentative, but may serve to show that Manchuria receives comparatively much yarn and Korea much textiles, and that they together receive at least a large percentage of those articles exported by Japan, where their manufacture occupies an increasingly important place in her economic life.[[24]] As to the exportation of agricultural products from Manchuria and Korea, it is seen that wheat is only beginning to be cultivated in Manchuria, while the rice cultivation is there practically unknown except in a few places near the Korean border, where during the campaign of 1894–5 the Japanese troops introduced it. The position which Korea occupies in the importation of wheat into Japan will be seen from the following table:—