T'he Days of a Man 



scientific assistant in Samoa and elsewhere, then had 

 charge of Japanese emigration enterprises in South 

 America, a brief discussion of which may not be out 

 of place. 



Japanese laborers in general are very gregarious, 

 preferring to live close together and at home, "where 

 their customs fit them like a garment." Furthermore, 

 they have little taste for frontier life; they do not 

 readily move even into the extensive unoccupied 

 tracts of northern Japan and Korea. About 1909, 

 large subsidies were paid to induce immigrants to 

 settle on farms in the north of the main island and in 

 Hokkaido. But the newcomers generally insisted on 

 planting rice, the usual crop, which will not thrive 

 in cold climates, and in 1911 large districts were 

 threatened with famine. As a matter of fact such 

 northern lands are suited mainly for grazing, hardy 

 fruits, and grains, and these demand actual capital. 



Only traders, students, tourists, and the homeless 

 poor willingly leave their native haunts; the farmer 

 owning two or three acres of rice land will not budge. 

 To Peru few would go because of the low wages paid 

 the native laborers with whom immigrants would be 

 forced to compete. In Brazil, however, Sindo was 

 more successful, and made arrangements for a con- 

 siderable number of his countrymen. 



In Kobe I now met the British Liberal journalist, 

 Robert Young, whom I afterward came to know well 

 in London. Young is the editor of the Japan Chron- 

 icle, a daily of high character, somewhat censorious 

 as to Japanese affairs and furnishing an often needed 

 corrective to official optimism. During our stay the 

 local Stanford group chartered a steamer to take us 

 on an interesting excursion to the Island of Awaji in 



C 386 3 



