the country,
and sends annually $6,500,000 worth to market.

If the rice crop might be exported it would realize $200,000,000 each
year. But no food may be sent abroad, for it is a sad fact that Japan is
capable of feeding only two thirds of her own people. It is necessary to
import foodstuffs to the extent of about $47,000,000 a year. The
Japanese benefit by the compensating supply of fish secured from the
seas washing the shores of the Island Empire. When it is realized that
Japan's rapidly-growing population cannot be sustained by her soil and
fisheries, the real reason for battling against Russia's aggression on
the mainland is understood, for ten years hence, Japan's crowding
millions, confined to her own islands, would experience the pangs of
hunger. The Mikado and his councilors foresaw this.

[Illustration: A GARDEN VIEW OF THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, TOKYO]

"Having deposits of coal and iron, why may not Japan be developed into
the Eastern equivalent of England?" ask stay-at-home admirers of the
Japanese, who believe that to them nothing is impossible. The Mikado's
territory has coal, iron and copper, it is true; but in no instance is
the mineral present to an extent making it a national asset of
importance. Bituminous coal of good quality is mined at several points
which is used by Japanese commercial and naval vessels; but elsewhere in
the East it has to compete with Chinese and Indian coals. It is said in
Nagasaki that her coal will last another two centuries, but were it
mined on the scale of American and British coal it would be exhausted in
a generation. The greatest efforts have been made to produce iron ore in
paying quantities. In several instances public assistance has been lent
to the industry, but seldom has a ton of ore been raised that has not
cost twice its market value. Japan is determined to become a producer of
iron, and to this end a long lease had been secured on an important
mineral tract in China, whose ore blends advantageously with Mexican and
Californian hematite, while it is asserted that the government has
secured in Manchuria a seam of coal fifty feet in thickness, covered by
a few feet of soil, that is contiguous to transportation, and which
cannot be exhausted in hundreds of years. A valuable acquisition in
conquered Saghalien--not noted by the newspapers--is beds of coal and
iron of vast area. These may enable Japan, in her determination to
become a manufacturing nation, to be eventu