a {171} sheer lack of economic
reserves. Her area, not including Korea, Formosa, Sakhalin, etc., is
149,000 square miles, or less than that of California, while her
population (1914) is 56,000,000. Moreover, Japan is so extraordinarily
mountainous that the greater part of her area is unfitted for
agriculture. Despite a very low standard of living, therefore, and a
highly intensive culture, the land cannot feed the population, and
foodstuffs must be imported. The population is growing with great
rapidity, the excess of births over deaths amounting to over six
hundred thousand a year.

Nor has Japan a sufficient outlet through emigration. The immigration
of Japanese into Australia, British Columbia, the United States and
South Africa is practically prohibited. Most parts of Eastern Asia are
too crowded with men living still lower in the scale to permit any
large infiltration of Japanese. To Japan, therefore, there are but two
alternatives to an ultimate famine: the settlement of Korea and
Manchuria, and industrialism. For industrialism, however, Japan is
rather ill-fitted by tradition and lack of raw materials. Her best
chance is to sell to China and to develop Manchuria and Korea, in both
of which directions she runs counter to European ambitions. As a
result, Japan becomes imperialistic and militaristic.

The American temptation to imperialism is far weaker than is that of
Japan. There is for us no overwhelming necessity to enter upon a
scramble for new territories or to fight wars to secure such
territories. Our aggressiveness is latent, though with a capacity for
growth. There are two ways to lessen this potential aggressiveness.
The first is to weaken economic interests favouring imperialism and war
and strengthen opposed interests; the second is to build up in the
people a tough intellectual and emotional resistance to martial
incitement. The remedy resolves itself into two {172} factors,
economic completeness and internal stability and equality.

Economic completeness depends in the first place upon a certain
relation between natural resources and population. If the fields and
mines of a country are too unproductive or its population excessive,
there will be an inevitable leaning upon the resources of foreign
countries and an intense competition for new territory, trade or
investment facilities. A nation, however, may possess most of the
elements of economic completeness and yet suffer through a