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The Review of Reviews. 



EXPAND OR STARVE! 



The Case for Japanese Expansion. 



The Oriental Revieiv contains a paper on the 

 economic needs of Japan, which puts very forcibly 

 the reasons why Japan is seeking fresh fields and 

 pastures new. The writer says that only one-tenth 

 of the area of Japan proper can be cultivated. There 

 are about 12,700,000 acres under cultivation, to support 

 50,000,000 people. Yet the density of population in 

 Japan is 336, as against 375 for Great Britain and 

 Ireland. The average density of population of the 

 world is 27' I per square mile. Therefore, the writer 

 argues, the population of Japan should be four million 

 instead of fifty million. The writer finds that the 

 wealth of the United States, Great Britain, France and 

 Germany works out at 1,395 dollars per head. Divid- 

 ing Japan's wealth by this figure, he obtains the 

 number 5,300,000, which, he says, is the number who 

 can be supported in Japan in the way civilised people 

 live to-day. " To conform to the average density of 

 population of the world, Japan ought not to have a 

 population of more than four million ; to be as rich 

 as the people of the great nations of the West the 

 Japanese need not be more than five million. Their 

 number is fifty million." 



LET THE MERCHANTS LEAD THE WAY. 



The most effective policy for making Japan prosperous 

 would be to send forty millions out of this fifty millions 

 to foreign countries, there to work as best they may. 

 This would at once give work to all the people at 

 hime and increase the e.xport trade of Japan to as 



TOWN PLANNING. 



The ArchilccUiral Review for March in its town planning notes 

 describes the Halifax town planning competition, and gives some of 

 the prize plans of .Messrs. Longbottom and Culpan, architects. The 

 accompanying picture (reproduced here by courtesy of the Arehitecttual 

 Revie7v) is a typical cottage group in the Ovenden part of the scheme. 

 It is mentioned that arcHtects are generally selected as judges and also 

 as town planners. 



many times as can be imagined. But this foiicv 

 though ideal, is impracticable : — 



The Japanese must go abroad or ultimately starve to death! 

 The Japanese must expand. America, Australia, and otherl 

 countries object to the immigration of Japanese laliouiers, Lut( 

 not to the coming of Japanese merchants and manulacturers. 

 These people might become pioneers, if only they choobu. 



When it comes to the question of whether the well-to-do 

 merchants and manufacturers at home prefer or not to go 

 abroad, it depends upon the make-up of their characters. The 

 adventurous spirit of the Japanese was suppressed for centuries. 

 It will require years of patient education by the government, 

 press, and schools to renew that spirit. But it must be revivified 

 at all costs and by all the people. The Japanese ought to be 

 enlightened as to the conditions in different countries, as to 

 business opportunities to be found in them, and as to the desir- 

 ability of exerting their energies preferably in the broad and 

 sparsely populated parts of the world rather than in 

 the overcrowded and narrow slip of land of their own 

 country. 



The Japanese have been a seafaring people from the begin- 

 ning of their history, and it would seem that their hest chance of 

 success to-day must lie in this direction. They would have 

 succeeded as oversea traders long ago except for the prohibition 

 by the feudal government to build large vessels. Truly, "to 

 sea and to oversea lands " should be the clarion call for the 

 whole Japanese nation in the future. 



THE SWISS WOMAN AT LAST A PERSON. 



In the Englishwoman for JIarch Mrs. Julian Grande 

 describes the introduction of the new code into 

 Switzerland this year, which has constituted the Swiss 

 woman a major. Up to the end of 191 1 she was merely 

 a minor'. She has still no vote for 

 municipal or parliamentary bodies, 

 but she is henceforth a legal person, 

 an independent entity, capable of 

 acting on her own responsibility. 

 A Swiss woman now for the first time 

 receives the right to dispose of her 

 own earnings. A Swiss widow can 

 now be sole legal guardian of her 

 children, and make a legal will. 

 The new civil code allow's actions 

 for breach of promise of marriage. 

 It raises the legal age of marriage 

 for a girl from sixteen to eighteen ; 

 for a man, from eighteen to twenty. 

 The grounds of divorce are now 

 identical for both sexes. Infidelity 

 alone, without cruelty, is sufficient 

 ground for divorcing a husband. 

 The man is still, by Swiss law, the 

 legal head of the household, but 

 the wife has now the right to 

 manage the housekeeping. She 

 has the Schlihsclgewall (control of 

 the keys). Legally, the husband 

 is now no longer the guardian of 

 his wife. 



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