Japan's Feet of Clay. by Freda UtleyReview by: John E. OrchardPacific Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Mar., 1937), pp. 98-99Published by: Pacific Affairs, University of British ColumbiaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2750910 .

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Pacific Afairs

of that part of the scene which it portrays. Within its rather too limited scope Mr. Lin's contribution is undoubtedly useful.

A. F. W. PLUMPTRE

Toronto, November I936

JAPAN's FEET OF CLAY. By Freda Utley. London: Faber and Faber Ltd. I936. PP. 393. I5s. iod. (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.)

JAPAN S FEET OF CLAY will not please the Japanese. It sets out to deflate and to censure the Japanese political, social and economic structure and does so with unrestrained zeal. The main purpose of the book is frankly stated to be "to destroy a few of the illusions con- cerning Japan's power, efficiency and culture; to explode the false notions both of her invincibility and of her real purpose; to show both her weakness as an ally and the danger she will ultimately become if her bluff is not called and she comes closer to being in fact what she is now only in fancy and outward appearance." Although the book is quite definitely "the case against Japan" and is colored by the com- munist viewpoint, it is essentially a sound analysis of the Japanese dilemma and a tremendous piece of work. The author has studied the Japanese scene in person and has drawn material from official and unofficial publications in a very wide field. Most of the facts cannot be challenged, except when too great eagerness to make an already bad condition worse leads the author astray.

The case is made that "Japan is putting up a big bluff"; that she is vulnerable because of economic and social weaknesses and that like Tsarist Russia she is a colossus with feet of clay; that instead of being the irresistible strong power of the East, an overwhelming poverty of raw materials and a dangerous dependence upon foreign trade place her at the mercy of the British Empire and the United States, her two major sources of raw materials and the essential markets for her manufactures; that social revolution is imminent; that "the strain of a real war would quickly bring Japan's rickety social and economic struc- ture crashing to the ground."

Both industry and agriculture are declared ineffective and inefficient. The government, the militarists, the landlords, the usurers, the indus- trialists, the Japanese male-and not the forces of poverty, overpopula- tion and human fallibility-are held deliberately responsible for the ills of Japan. Not the rugged topography, nor the intensive character of

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Book Reviews agriculture, but selfishness and greed are all that stand between Japan and the wonderful fruits of modern mechanized farming, cattle breed- ing, and power irrigation. Although on page io8 the fundamental cause of agricultural distress is said to be the "pressure on the land and the absence of an alternative means of livelihood for the cultivators," two pages further along the blame is shifted from these powerful forces to the rulers and the landowning class for,

Above all the payment of rent in kind, by ensuring the landlord an ever increasing income as the yield has been increased by the use of chemical fertilizers, has kept the land divided up into an enormous number of tiny farms. Fundamentally, therefore, it is the feudal sur- vivals, or Asiatic backwardness, of Japanese agriculture which have prevented the application of mechanical farming methods.

Overstatement occurs in many places. Japan is called semi-barbaric, backward, uncultured, not overpopulated, a country of half-starved peasants. Unfavorable and misleading comparisons are made with Great Britain; and in the consideration of none of the problems is there a kindly or sympathetic approach. Yet there is so much of truth in this work, so much of keen observation, that it cannot be lightly dismissed. It is a comprehensive and at the same time an intimate account of Japan's internal and external condition and covers the wide sweep of agriculture and industry, the tenant farmer, factory labor, the structure of the national economy, civil rights and liberties, the temper of the people, and military aggression. It is a book that is stimulating and even exciting to the well-informed on Japan, who can make their own judgments and discard what is not sound, but for the general reader it may be the source of unfortunate misconceptions.

JOHN E. ORCHARD

New York, January I937

JAPANESE TRADE AND INDUSTRY, PRESENT AND FUTURE. By Mit-

subishi Economic Research Bureau, Tokyo. London and New York: Macmillan Co., I936. XViii + 663. 2IS.

TFHIS bulky volume, a monument to the erudition of the Mit- subishi Economic Research Bureau, is a valuable addition to the library of Far Eastern economics. Part I gives an analytical account of the eco- nomic development of Japan since the re-imposition of the gold embargo in I93I. Part II surveys basic characteristics of the Japanese economy

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