Far Finer City and Harbour Than Before: AH Combined to Raise Her from. the Ashes of Earthquake From Oun Tory cut by the earthqua bythe the thergu'and Rondon the Yokohama, Sept. 1
"Bndeavours should be made tio restore not only the pre-carthquake conditions of Yokohama, but also to ro-create an improved Yoko-bhamo which will develop into a far greater and nobler city."
'Thus van the gracious and encouraging message isted to such officials as were loft in Yokohama in, September, 1923, by His Majesty the Emperor, then the Prince Regent, when' the city was yet a shambles prostrate in its own dust and aalles and, literally, not a stone was Lott upon a stone. In those fateful days, many were the coun-despair, some of these advising. that the "capital be removed from Tokyo, If. this had been dono, the fate of Yokohama as a great énixepét of the world would have been sealed andi would have reverted to the pristine fishing vllagh it was before foreign enterprise and vision converted it into "the great seaport it was destined to become.
The Key to the Orient Anigng those who scouted the idea of the capital being shifted and Yokohama being simply abandoned was a handful of foreign pioneers whose life had been wrapped up with the growth of Yokohama, They were convinced that Yokohama was the Pacific key to the Orient and lamented the counsels that such a valuable asset should be thrown away. And when the message of the Prince Regent was promulgated declaring that Tokyo would continue to remain the Empire's capital and that Yokohama should, if anything, even develop into a greater city, great was the rejoicing amongst' these foreign pioneers who rallied many ani tuential Japanese to Yokohama'
at a time when the latter]
vere in a very dispirited condition, 'To-day, six years after the disaster and the clarion call to duty' roptesented by the Prince Regont's rorcript, Yokohama has truly "come! Back," ism far finer city than the cone ' wiped, out by the 1923 cataclysm anit has actually develop-city." ed' into a "far greater and nobler
One of the first of the roconstruction labours undertaken was that of the harbour since Yokohama's raison d'étre is her wonderful port, and work was taken in hand while the earth yet shook, and trembled. To-day, the port of 'Yokohama is greatly' superior to what it was in 1923, not only as regards facilities, but also solidity and excellence of construc tion. "The reconstructed _harbour is an outstanding engineering, hiovement,, and the tonnage!
tering the port to-day exceeds the figures preceding the earthquake.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.