We have noticed many complaints lately in the Japanese press of the poverty which is now pressing upon the commercial and industrial classes in Japan, and the absence of anything like a healthy and reuumerative trade, We have also noticed that, although these disadvantages are so geveroly felt, the writers make no attempts either to explain the causes which have led to the present state, or to suggest a remedy. The reason of this strange silence probably is, not that the conductors of the native press are enable to form a well-foauded opinion about the matter, but that they are restrained from writing fully by the severity of the press-laws, the action of which is vexatious to an extraordinary degree. Some editors have, however, veulured a suggestion or two, and stress has been laid on the recent sudden rise i the value of paper-money, which tow quoted almost on a par wi yen, and has became very scarce in consequence, This, no doubt, may have had a prejudicial effect, bat other causes have been at work, and these are of @ nature which forbids the the judicious publicist of Japan to meddle with them, The rise in paper only dates a few months back, while trade has been bad and the people have boon suffering for the last three yea at least.
It is only fair to say that the Govern. mont has devoted much anxious care to this urisal tory state of affairs with view to placing them upon a sounder basis. The Board of Agriculture and Commerce has already sent commis.
into the affected districts to poor, and memorials Lave been presented to the Throne of State embodying their opinion on the matter. One of the commi sioners alluded to expressed the convyi money was spent quite unnecessarily by the employment of too many people under Government, and suggested that the namber of Government employes might very well be cut down to one-third of their present strength. We believe the remark was not with. out some foundation, for whereas there were 30,000, people in Government employ in the year 1877, there are today no fewer than 100,000. It is true that as progress and civilisation advance in Japan, there may be more work to do in the several departments of State; but we are sure that the staff might be very considerably reduced without endangering its efficiency, and certain sums economise under this hea Again, there is the question of tax tion, It is said that a certain Japanese financier, the manager of a bank, foresaw the present disastrous state of affairs some years ago, and presented a scheme to one of the Cabinet Ministers providing for a decrease in the tax His proposals were not adopted, ci cumstances not being considered, at the time, such as to warrant the experiment. But it seems clear that something will have to be done. To use the phrase. employed by the Tapaueso themselves to express incrensing poverty, the people are swallowing hot water instend of tea, and congee instead of rice. We believe that is no Bguro of speech; on the contrary, some of the labouring classes are 60 destitute as to be unable even Lo afford congee, and cases of people being liter ally starved to death in the streets are, if not common, at any rate nob un. known, It is impossible that the Government can close its eyes to this disastrous state of things, and only reasonable to suppose that Ministers have fally and satisfactorily ascer. tained the causes that have led to it, To us, it appears that whatever inoidental or secondary tentures of the situa. tion may have to do with it, the radical and prime causes of the distress are three in number: we mean (1) the sudden ise in the price of paper (2) the heavy incidence of taxation, and (3) the interference of the Government in pri-vote commercial and industrial enter. prises. For a Government to be perpetually meddling and interfering with private undertakings is a great blunder, and can only be attended with bad results, The tax question might be fvilitated by cutting down all unnecessary expenses, and some exe penses at any rate could be saved by a thinning-out of unnecessary por-sous from all the departments of the Government. A good deal of money was made some years ago by the manufacturers of curios and other articles of taste and luxury, when the rage for such things first set in at home; but aflorwards, when the demand increased, and a regular trade up, a deterioration took place in ity; numbers of comparative. ly useless objects wore made to order, the result has been heavy losses to the producers. his called forth the intervention of the authorities, who however would have done better to have left the evil to work its own cure; while as regards the present time, it is certainly not the moment for placing restrictions upon industry, There are, in short, moments when Governments may fitly and rightly take the initiate in the relief of publio distress, and so far intervention is to be commended; but such intervention should as an ircofragable principle be confined rather to the removal of burdens than to the imposition of embargoes upon the natural resources of the people and the development of their industries. We have always suspected that this fundamental truth is but imperfectly understood by the advisers of the Mikado, who are too apt to impart a fussy and paternal character to their government of the people, and to overlook the practical duty of them, in the pleasure they seem to take in treating them like children at a school.
The Government has, we are glad to see, already done something to relieve the agricultural classes, Since 1882 the land tax on rice fields, which amounts to thirty-one millions of yen, has been collected in two equal hulfyearly instalments, The burdens of ihe agricultural classes wore increased, and the amount of money in ciroulus
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.