the hoardings. It is of some importance to consider what
will be the effect of this knowledge in competition with the national
appreciation of large families.[227] Is it likely that an intensely
"practical" people, which has bolted so much of European and American
"civilisation," will be wholly uninfluenced by the Western practice of
limitation of offspring? What is to-day the actual strength of the
social needs which have produced the large Japanese family?[228]
Whatever middle-aged Japanese may think, the matter is not in their
hands, but in the hands of the younger generation. Most Western
economists would no doubt argue that if fewer babies arrived in Japan
there would not be so many farmers' boys and university graduates bent
on emigrating.

Without the voluntary limitation of families, however, the number of
children born is likely to be diminished by the increased cost of
living and by the postponement of marriage. I know Japanese men who
were married before they were twenty; the younger generation of my
friends is marrying nearer thirty.[229]

There is reason to believe that the population has not increased of
recent years at the old rate.[230] A responsible authority expressed
the opinion to me that the necessities of the population are unlikely
to overtake the means of production in the near future.[231]

The Japanese are intensely practical, but they have, as we have seen,
another side. If that other side is not "spiritual," in the sense in
which the word is largely used in the West, it is at least regardful
of other considerations than the "practical." It is with thoughts of
that vital side of the national character that I recall a story told
me by Dr. Nitobe of the last days of the Forty-seven Ronin. It is well
authenticated. When the Ronin had slain their dead lord's persecutor
and had given themselves up to the authorities, they were found worthy
of death. But the Shogun was in some anxiety as to what might justly
be done. He sent privily to a famous abbot saying that it was at all
times the duty of the Shogun to condemn to death men who had committed
murder. Yet it was the privilege of a priest to ask for mercy, and in
the matter of the lives of the Ronin the Shogun would not be unwilling
to listen to a plea for mercy. The abbot answered that he sympathised
deeply with the Ronin, but because he so sympathised with them he was
unwilling to take any steps which might hinder the carrying out of the
sent