of cooked rice and barley as the
principal food with vegetables and occasionally fish." The barley is
what is known as naked barley. Ordinary barley is eaten in northern
Japan, but two-thirds of the barley eaten elsewhere is the wheat-like
naked barley, which cannot be grown in Fukushima and the north. The
husking of ordinary barley is hard work. The young men do it during
the night when it is cool. They keep on until cock-crow. Their songs
and the sound of their mallets make a memorable impression as one
passes through a village on a moonlight night. Another substitute for
rice beyond millet is _hiye_ (panic grass). In the south it is
regarded as a weed of the paddies, but in the north many _tan_ are
planted with this heavy-yielding small grain.

TAXATION [XXVII]. Before 1906 national taxation was 2.5 per cent. of
the legal price of land. In 1900 it was 3.3 per cent., in 1904 5.5 per
cent., in 1911 4.7 per cent, and in 1915 4.5 per cent. But local
taxation increased in greater proportion.

FLAVOUR OF RICE AND PRICE FLUCTUATIONS [XXVIII]. Japanese rice has a
fatty flavour which the people of Japan like. Therefore the native
rice commands a higher price in Japan than Chinese or Indian rice.
With the exception of a small quantity exported to Japanese abroad,
Japanese rice is consumed in Japan. The supply of it and the demand
for it are exclusively a Japanese affair. Naturally, when the crop
fails the price soars, and when there is a superabundant harvest the
price comes down to the level of foreign rice. Here is the secret of
the enormous fluctuations in the price of Japanese rice with which
the authorities have so often endeavoured to cope.

The Government granary plan is the third big effort of authority to
manage rice prices. The Okuma Government, under the administration of
which rice went down to 14 yen per _koku_, had a Commission to raise
prices. The Terauchi Ministry, at a time when prices rose, touching 55
yen, had a Commission to bring prices down.

AREA AND CLIMATE [XXIX]. Japan Proper comprises a main island, three
other large islands in sight of the main island, and
archipelagos--4,000 islets have been counted. The main island, Honshu,
with Shikoku behind it, lies off the coast of Korea; the next largest
and northernmost island, Hokkaido, off the coast of Siberia, and the
remaining sizeable island and the southernmost, Kyushu, off the coast
of China over against the mouth of the Yangtse. The area of