orld'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 r