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CURRENCY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES AND OFFICIAL TERMS
CURRENCY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES AND OFFICIAL TERMS
The prices given in the text (but not in the footnotes and Appendix) were recorded before the War inflation began. The War was followed by a severe financial crisis. Professor Nasu wrote to me during the summer of 1921: "You are very wise to leave the figures as they stood. It is useless to try to correct them, because they are still changing. The price of rice, which did not exceed 15 yen per koku when you were making your research work, exceeded 50 yen in 1919, and is now struggling to maintai
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THE MERCY OF BUDDHA
THE MERCY OF BUDDHA
The only hard facts, one learns to see as one gets older, are the facts of feeling. Emotion and sentiment are, after all, incomparably more solid than any statistics. So that when one wanders back in memory through the field one has traversed in diligent search of hard facts, one comes back bearing in one's arms a Sheaf of Feelings.— Havelock Ellis . One day as I walked along a narrow path between rice fields in a remote district in Japan, I saw a Buddhist priest coming my way. He was rosy-faced
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"GOOD PEOPLE ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY PRECAUTIOUS"
"GOOD PEOPLE ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY PRECAUTIOUS"
Je ne propose rien, je n'impose rien, j'expose.— De la liberté du travail He had been through Tokyo University, but his hands were rough with the work of the rice fields. "I resent the fact that a farmer is considered to be socially inferior to a townsman," he said. "I am going to show that the income of a farmer who is diligent and skilful may equal that of a Minister of State. I also propose to build a fine house, not out of vanity, but in order to show that an honest farmer can do as well for
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EARLY-RISING SOCIETIES AND OTHER INGENUOUS ACTIVITIES
EARLY-RISING SOCIETIES AND OTHER INGENUOUS ACTIVITIES
I should be heartily sorry if there were no signs of partiality. On the other hand, there is, I trust, no importunate advocacy or tedious assentation.— Morley "The alarum clocks for waking us at four o'clock in the summer and five in the winter"—it was the chairman of a village Early-Rising Society who was speaking to me—are placed at the houses of the secretaries, and each member is in turn a secretary. The duty of a secretary, when the alarum clock strikes, is to get up and visit the houses of
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"THE SIGHT OF A GOOD MAN IS ENOUGH"
"THE SIGHT OF A GOOD MAN IS ENOUGH"
It has been said that we should emulate rather than imitate them. All I say is, Let us study them.— Matthew Arnold For seven years in succession the men, old, middle-aged and young, who had done the most remarkable things in the agriculture of the prefecture had been invited to gather in conference. I went to this annual "meeting of skilful farmers." Among the speakers were the local governor and chiefs of departments who had been sent down by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Home Office. Acc
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COUNTRY-HOUSE LIFE
COUNTRY-HOUSE LIFE
The sense of a common humanity is a real political force.— J.R. Green The stranger in Japan sees so little of the intimacies of country life that I shall say something of further visits to what we should call county families. My hosts, who seemed to be active to a greater or less degree in promoting the welfare of their tenants, lived in purely Japanese style. Yet now and then in a beautiful house there was a showy gilt timepiece or some other thing of a deplorable Western fashion. At all the ho
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BEFORE OKUNITAMA-NO-MIKO-NO-KAMI [36]
BEFORE OKUNITAMA-NO-MIKO-NO-KAMI [36]
Nor do I see why we should take it for granted that their gods are unworthy of respect.— Valerius In Aichi prefecture I was asked to plant trees (persimmons) in the grounds of three temples or shrines and on the land of several farmers. In an exposed position on a hill-top I found persimmons being grown on a system under which the landlord provided the land, trees and manures and the farmer the labour, and the produce was equally divided. The cryptomeria at one of the shrines I visited were of g
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OF "DEVIL-GON" AND YOSOGI
OF "DEVIL-GON" AND YOSOGI
The consciousness of a common purpose in mankind, or even the acknowledgment that such a common purpose is possible, would alter the face of world politics at once.— Graham Wallas There was a bad landlord who was nicknamed "Devil-gon." He was shot. There was another bad landlord who, as he was crossing a narrow bridge over a brook, was "pistolled through the sleeve and tumbled into the water." Although the murderer was well known, his name was never revealed to the police, and the family of the
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THE HARVEST FROM THE MUD
THE HARVEST FROM THE MUD
Toyo-ashiwara-no-chiiho-aki-mizuho-no-Kuni (Land of plenteous ears of rice in the plain of luxuriant reeds). The vast difference between Far Eastern and Western agriculture is marked by the fact that, except by using such a phrase as shallow pond—and this is inadequate, because a pond has a sloping bottom and a rice field necessarily a level one—it is difficult to describe a rice field in terms intelligible to a Western farmer. The Japanese have a special word for a rice field, ta , water field,
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THE RICE BOWL, THE GODS AND THE NATION
THE RICE BOWL, THE GODS AND THE NATION
I thank whatever gods there be....— Henley...
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I
I
How many people who have not been in the East or in the rice trade realise that rice, in the course of the polishing it receives from the farmer and the dealer, loses nearly half its bulk? A necessary part of the grain is lost. No wonder that sensible people in Japan and the West demand the grey unpolished rice. In Japan some enterprising person has started selling bottled stuff made from the part of the rice grain that is rubbed off in the polishing process. It does not look appetising. An easi
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II
II
In the year of the Coronation—it took place three years after the Emperor's accession—two prefectures had the honour of being chosen to produce the rice to be placed before gods, Emperor and dignitaries at Kyoto. The work was not undertaken without ceremony. I was a witness of the rites performed at the planting of the rice in one of the prefectures. Plots had been prepared with enormous care. Along the top of the special fencing were the Shinto straw bands and paper streamers. A small shrine ha
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III[84]
III[84]
The production of rice has increased more quickly than the growth of the population. If we consider, along with the advance in population, the crops of the years 1882 and 1913, which were held to be average, and, in order to be as up-to-date as possible, the normal annual yield [85] of the five-years period 1912-18, we find that, as between 1882 and 1913, the population increased 45 per cent. and rice production increased 63 per cent., while as between 1882 and the normal annual yield period of
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A TROUBLER OF ISRAEL
A TROUBLER OF ISRAEL
The signification of this gift of life, that we should leave a better world for our successors, is being understood.— Meredith To some people in Japan the countryman Kanzō Uchimura is "the Japanese Carlyle." To others he is a religious enthusiast and the Japanese equivalent of a troubler of Israel. He appeared to me in the guise of a student of rural sociology. Uchimura is the man who as a school teacher "refused to bow before the Emperor's portrait." [100] He endured, as was to be expected, soc
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THE IDEA OF A GAP
THE IDEA OF A GAP
Bold is the donkey driver, O Khedive, and bold is the Khedive who dares to say what he will believe, not knowing in any wise the mind of Allah, not knowing in any wise his own heart. The "Japanese Carlyle" is getting grey. It seemed well to seek out some young Japanese thinker and take his view of that "heathenism" concerning which Uchimura had delivered himself so unsparingly. Let me speak of my first visit to my friend Yanagi. As a youth Yanagi was a lonely student. He took his own way to know
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TO THE HILLS (TOKYO, SAITAMA, TOCHIGI AND FUKUSHIMA)
TO THE HILLS (TOKYO, SAITAMA, TOCHIGI AND FUKUSHIMA)
Nothing which concerns a countryman is a matter of unconcern to me.— Terence During the month of July I went from one side of Japan to the other, starting from Tokyo, across the sea from which lies America, and coming out at Niigata, across the sea from which lies Siberia. We first made a four hours' railway run through the great Kwanto plain (6,000 square miles). Travelling is comfortable on such a trip, for travellers take off their coats and waistcoats, and the train-boy—he has the word "Boy"
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THE DWELLERS IN THE HILLS (FUKUSHIMA)
THE DWELLERS IN THE HILLS (FUKUSHIMA)
I didn't visit this place in the hope of seeing fine prospects—my study is man.— Borrow Before I left the town I had a chat with a landowner who turned his tenants' rent rice into saké . He was of the fifth generation of brewers. He said that in his childhood drunken men often lay about the street; now, he said, drunken men were only to be seen on festival days. There had been a remarkable development in the trade in flavoured aerated waters, "lemonade" and "cider champagne" chiefly. I found the
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SHRINES AND POETRY (NIIGATA AND TOYAMA)
SHRINES AND POETRY (NIIGATA AND TOYAMA)
Sir, I am talking of the mass of the people.— Johnson The railway made its way through snow stockades and through many tunnels which pierced cryptomeria-clad hills. Eventually we descended to the wonderful Kambara plains, a sea of emerald rice. Fourteen million bushels of rice are produced on the flats of Niigata prefecture, which grows more rice than any other. The rice, grown under 800 different names, is officially graded into half a dozen qualities. The problem of the high country we had com
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THE NUN'S CELL (NAGANO)
THE NUN'S CELL (NAGANO)
It is one more incitement to a man to do well.— Boswell Eighty per cent. of Nagano is slope. Hence its dependence on sericulture. The low stone-strewn roofs of the houses, the railway snow shelters and the zig-zag track which the train takes, hint at the climatic conditions in winter time. Despite the snow—ski-ing has been practised for some years—the summer climate of Nagano has been compared with that of Champagne and there is one vineyard of 60,000 vines. I was invited to join a circle of adm
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PROBLEMS BEHIND THE PICTURESQUE (SAITAMA, GUMMA, NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)
PROBLEMS BEHIND THE PICTURESQUE (SAITAMA, GUMMA, NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)
A foreigner who comes among us without prejudice may speak his mind freely.— Goldsmith I went back to Nagano to visit the silk industrial regions. My route lay through the prefectures of Saitama and Gumma. I left Tokyo on the last day of June. Many farmers were threshing their barley. On the dry-land patches, where the grain crop had been harvested, soya bean, sown between the rows of grain long before harvest, was becoming bushier now that it was no longer overshadowed. Maize in most places was
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THE BIRTH, BRIDAL AND DEATH OF THE SILK-WORM (NAGANO)
THE BIRTH, BRIDAL AND DEATH OF THE SILK-WORM (NAGANO)
The mulberry leaf knoweth not that it shall be silk.— Arab proverb One acre in every dozen in Japan produces mulberry leaves for feeding the silk-worms which two million farming families—more than a third of the farming families of the country—painstakingly rear. But the mulberry is not the only mark of a sericultural district. Its mark may be seen in the tall chimneys of the factories and in the structure of the farmers' houses. Breeders of silk-worms are often well enough off to have tiled ins
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"GIRL COLLECTORS" AND FACTORIES (NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)
"GIRL COLLECTORS" AND FACTORIES (NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)
At your return show the truth.— Froissart I visited factories in more than one prefecture. At the first factory—it employed about 1,000 girls and 200 men—work began at 4.30 a.m., breakfast was at 5 and the next meal at 10.30. The stoppages for eating were for a few minutes only. A cake was handed to each girl at her machine at 3. Suppertime came after work was finished at 7. [141] No money was paid the first year. The second year the wages might be 3 or 4 yen a month. The statement was made that
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"FRIEND-LOVE-SOCIETY'S" GRIM TALE
"FRIEND-LOVE-SOCIETY'S" GRIM TALE
The psychology of behaviour teaches us that [a country's] failures and semi-failures are likely to continue until there is a far more widespread appreciation of the importance of studying the forces which govern behaviour.— Saxby...
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I
I
I do not think that some of the factory proprietors are conscious that they are taking undue advantage of their employees. These men are just average persons at the ante-Shaftesbury stage of responsibility towards labour. [144] Their case is that the girls are pitifully poor and that the factories supply work at the ruling market rates for the work of the pitifully poor. Said one factory owner to me genially: "Peasant families are accustomed to work from daylight to dark. In the silk-worm feedin
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II[148]
II[148]
The enterprise, the efficiency and the profits shown by the sericultural industry have been remarkable, and not a few of the capitalists connected with it are personally public-spirited. But many well-wishers of Japan, native-born and foreign, cannot help wondering what is the real as compared with the seeming return of the industry to a nation the strength of which is in its reservoir of rustic health and willingness. It is significant of the extent to which the factories are working with cheap
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"THE GARDEN WHERE VIRTUES ARE CULTIVATED" (FUKUSHIMA AND YAMAGATA)
"THE GARDEN WHERE VIRTUES ARE CULTIVATED" (FUKUSHIMA AND YAMAGATA)
Boswell : If you should advise me to go to Japan I believe I should. Johnson : Why yes, Sir, I am serious. In one of my journeys I went from Tokyo to the extreme north of Japan, travelling up the west coast and down the east. Fukushima prefecture—in which is Shirakawa, famous for a horse fair which lasts a week—encourages the eating of barley, for on the northern half of the east coast of Japan there is no warm current and the rice crop may be lost in a cold season. "Officials of the prefecture
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THE "TANOMOSHI" (YAMAGATA)
THE "TANOMOSHI" (YAMAGATA)
Society is kept in animation by the customary and by sentiment.— Meredith Six feet of snow is common on the line on which we travelled in Yamagata prefecture, and washouts are not infrequent. A train has been stopped for a week by snow. It was difficult to think of snow when one saw groups of pilgrims with their flopping sun-mats on their backs. The shrines on three local mountain tops are visited by 20,000 people yearly. We bought at railway stations different sorts of gelatinous fruit preparat
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"BON" SONGS AND THE SILENT PRIEST (YAMAGATA, AKITA, [160] AOMORI, IWATE, MIYAGI, FUKUSHIMA AND IBARAKI)
"BON" SONGS AND THE SILENT PRIEST (YAMAGATA, AKITA, [160] AOMORI, IWATE, MIYAGI, FUKUSHIMA AND IBARAKI)
The worst of our education is that it looks askance, looks over its shoulder at sex.—R.L.S. A village headman, encountered in the train just as we were leaving Yamagata prefecture, gave me some insight into the life of his little community. The fathers of two-score families were shopkeepers and tradesmen—- that is, tradesmen in the old meaning of the word. There were also a few labourers. About two hundred and fifty families owned land and some of them rented additional tracts. Another sixty wer
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A MIDNIGHT TALK
A MIDNIGHT TALK
True religion is a relation, accordant with reason and knowledge, which man establishes with the infinite life surrounding him, and it is such as binds his life to that infinity, and guides his conduct.— Tolstoy One of the most instructive experiences I had during my rural journeys occurred one night when I was staying at a country inn. At a late hour I was told that the Governor of the prefecture was in a room overhead. I had called on him a few days before in his prefectural capital. He was a
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LANDLORDS, PRIESTS AND "BASHA" (TOKUSHIMA, KOCHI AND KAGAWA)
LANDLORDS, PRIESTS AND "BASHA" (TOKUSHIMA, KOCHI AND KAGAWA)
The most capital article, the character of the inhabitants.— Tytler In travelling southwards I noticed between Kyoto and Osaka that farms were being irrigated from wells in the primitive way by means of the weighted swinging pole and bucket. Along the coast to the south, indeed as far as Hiroshima, there have been great gains from the sea, and in the neighbourhood of Kobe there are three parallel roads which mark successive recoveries of land. Before crossing the Inland Sea at Okayama to Shikoku
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"SPECIAL TRIBES" (EHIME)
"SPECIAL TRIBES" (EHIME)
A frank basis of reality.— Meredith In the prefecture of Ehime our journey was still by basha or kuruma and near the sea. The first man we talked with was a gunchō who said that "more than half the villages contained a strong character who can lead." He told us of one of the new religions which taught its adherents to do some good deed secretly. The people who accepted this religion mended roads, cleaned out ponds and made offerings at the graves of persons whose names were forgotten. I think it
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THE STORY OF THE BLIND HEADMAN (EHIME)
THE STORY OF THE BLIND HEADMAN (EHIME)
The thing to do is to rise humorously above one's body which is the veritable rebel, not one's mind.— Meredith It is delightful to find so many things made of copper. Copper, not iron, is in Japan the most valuable mineral product after coal. [182] But there are drawbacks to a successful copper industry. Several times as I came along by the coast I heard how the farmers' crops had been damaged by the fumes of a copper refinery. "There are four copper refineries in Japan, who fighted very much wi
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UP-COUNTRY ORATORY (YAMAGUCHI)
UP-COUNTRY ORATORY (YAMAGUCHI)
I have confidence, which began with hope and strengthens with experience, that humanity is gaining in the stores of mind.— Meredith The main street of an Inland Sea island we visited was 4 ft. wide. Because it was the eve of a festival the old folk were at home "observing their taboo." The islander who had been the first among the inhabitants to visit a foreign country was only fifty. The local policeman made us a gift of pears when we left. At another primitive island querns were in use and "or
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MEN, DOGS AND SWEET POTATOES (SHIMANE)
MEN, DOGS AND SWEET POTATOES (SHIMANE)
Nothing but omniscience could suffice to answer all the questions implicitly raised.— J.G. Frazer When we descended from the hills we were in Shimane, a long, narrow, coastwise prefecture through which one travels over a succession of heights to the capital, Matsue, situated at the far end. Two-thirds of the journey must be made on foot and by kuruma . [186] Some talk by the way was about the farmers going five or six miles daily to the hills to cut grass for their "cattle," the average number o
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FRIENDS OF LAFCADIO HEARN (SHIMANE, TOTTORI AND HYOGO)
FRIENDS OF LAFCADIO HEARN (SHIMANE, TOTTORI AND HYOGO)
Those who suffer learn, those who love know.— Mrs. Havelock Ellis At Matsue, with which the name of Lafcadio Hearn will always be associated, I chanced to arrive on the anniversary of his death. His local admirers were holding a memorial meeting. As a foreigner I was honoured with a request to attend. First, however, I had the chance of visiting Hearn's house. Matsue was the first place at which Hearn lived. He always remembered it and at last came back there to marry. Except that a pond has bee
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THE LIFE OF THE PEASANTS AND THEIR PRIESTS (NAGANO)
THE LIFE OF THE PEASANTS AND THEIR PRIESTS (NAGANO)
The condition of the lower orders is the true mark.— Johnson The Buddhist temple in which I lived for about two months stands on high ground in a village lying about 2,500 ft. above sea-level in the prefecture of Nagano and does not seem to have been visited by foreigners. It is reached by a road which is little better than a track. No kuruma are to be found in the district, but there are a few light two-wheeled lorries. Practically all the traffic is on horseback or on foot. There is a view of
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"BON" SEASON SCENES (NAGANO)
"BON" SEASON SCENES (NAGANO)
As moderns we have no direct affinity; as individuals we have a capacity for personal sympathy.— Matthew Arnold I had the good fortune to be in the village during the Bon season. The idea is that the spirits which are visiting their old homes remain between the 11th and 14th of August. The 11th is called mukae bon and the 14th okuri bon . ( Mukae means going to meet; okuri to see off.) On the 11th the villagers burned a piece of flax plant in front of their houses. That night the priest said a s
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PROGRESS OF SORTS (SHIDZUOKA AND KANAGAWA)
PROGRESS OF SORTS (SHIDZUOKA AND KANAGAWA)
I am not of those who look for perfection amongst the rural population.— Borrow The torrents that foam down the slopes of Fuji are a cheap source of electricity, and, though the guide book may not stress the fact, it is possible that the first glimpse of the unutterable splendours of the sacred mountain may be gained in the neighbourhood of a cotton, paper or silk factory. The farmers welcomed the factories when they found that factory contributions to local rates eased the burden of the agricul
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GREEN TEA AND BLACK (SHIDZUOKA)
GREEN TEA AND BLACK (SHIDZUOKA)
Things I would know but am forbid By time and briefness. Laurence Binyon More than half of the tea grown in Japan comes from the hilly coast-wise prefecture of Shidzuoka through which every traveller passes on his journey from Kobe or Kyoto to Tokyo. He sees a terraced cultivation of tea and fruit carried up to the skyline. But there is more tea on the hills than the passenger in the train imagines. When viewed from below much of the tea looks like scrub. In various parts of southern
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A COUNTRY DOCTOR AND HIS NEIGHBOURS (CHIBA)
A COUNTRY DOCTOR AND HIS NEIGHBOURS (CHIBA)
What was yet wanting must be sought by fortuitous and unguided excursions and gleaned as industry should find or chance should offer.— Johnson When I first went to Chiba, the peninsular prefecture lying across the bay from Tokyo, many carriages in the trains were heated by iron hibachi [203] with pieces of old carpet thrown over them. It is on the Chiba trains that the recruits of that section of the army which has to do with the operation of the railways learn their business. It is in part of C
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THE HUSBANDMAN, THE WRESTLER AND THE CARPENTER (SAITAMA, GUMMA AND TOKYO)
THE HUSBANDMAN, THE WRESTLER AND THE CARPENTER (SAITAMA, GUMMA AND TOKYO)
We are here to search the wounds of the realm, not to skim them over.— Bacon One day in the third week of October when the roads were sprinkled with fallen leaves I made an excursion into the Kwanto plain and passed from the prefecture of Tokyo into that of Saitama. [211] The weather now made it necessary for Japanese to wear double kimonos. During the middle of the day, however, I was glad to walk with my jacket over my arm, and many little boys and girls were running about naked. The region vi
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"THEY FEEL THE MERCY OF THE SUN" (GUMMA, KANAGAWA AND CHIBA)
"THEY FEEL THE MERCY OF THE SUN" (GUMMA, KANAGAWA AND CHIBA)
I find the consolation of life in things with which Governments cannot interfere, in the light and beauty the earth puts forth for her children. If the universe has any meaning, it exists for the purposes of soul.—Æ One December night there walked into my house a professor of agricultural politics, clad in tweeds and an overcoat, and with him a man who wore only a cotton kimono and a single under-garment. The sunburnt forehead of this man showed that he was not in the habit of wearing a hat. The
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COLONIAL JAPAN AND ITS UN-JAPANESE WAYS
COLONIAL JAPAN AND ITS UN-JAPANESE WAYS
Above all, this is not concerned with poetry.— Wilfred Owen When the traveller stands at the northern end of the mainland [232] of Japan he is five hundred miles from Tokyo. In the north of Hokkaido he is a thousand miles away. Hokkaido, the most northerly and the second biggest of the four islands into which Japan is divided, is curiously American. The wide straight streets of the capital, Sapporo, [233] laid out at right angles, the rough buggies with the farmer and his wife riding together, t
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SHALL THE JAPANESE EAT BREAD AND MEAT?
SHALL THE JAPANESE EAT BREAD AND MEAT?
Bon yori shoko (Proof, not argument) One day in Tokyo I heard a Japanese who was looking at a photograph of a British woman War-worker feeding pigs ask if the animals were sheep. Sheep are so rare in Japan that an old ram has been exhibited at a country fair as a lion. In contrast with Western agriculture based on live stock we have in Japan an agriculture based on rice. [247] But a section of the Japanese agricultural world turns its eyes longingly to mixed farming, and so, when I returned to S
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MUST THE JAPANESE MAKE THEIR OWN "YOFUKU"? [264]
MUST THE JAPANESE MAKE THEIR OWN "YOFUKU"? [264]
"God damn all foreigners!" —Interrupter at one of Mr. Gladstone's early meetings at Oxford When I was in Hokkaido sheep were being experimented with at different places on the mainland, investigators and sheep buyers had gone off to Australia, New Zealand and South America, and a Tokyo Sheep Bureau of two dozen officials had been established. Great hopes were built on a few hundred sheep in Hokkaido. [265] But I noticed that Government farm sheep were under cover on a warm September day. Also I
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THE PROBLEMS OF JAPAN
THE PROBLEMS OF JAPAN
Concerning these things, they are not to be delivered but from much intercourse and discussion.— Plato Emigrants do not willingly seek a climate worse than their own. This is one of the reasons why the development of Hokkaido has not been swifter. The island is not much farther from the mainland than Shikoku, but it is near, not the richest and warmest part of the mainland, but the poorest and the coldest. If we imagine another Scotland lying off Cape Wrath, at the distance of Ireland from Scotl
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B
B
owns 62 chō 4 tan and receives in rent 623 koku 7 to . Members of family, 11; servants, 8. THE "BENJO" [IV]. I never noticed a case in which earth was thrown into the domestic closet tub according to Dr. Poore's system. I have come across attempts to use deodorisers, but the application of a germicide is inhibited because of the injury which would be caused to the crops. Farmers are chary about removing night soil which has been treated even with a deodoriser. I ventured to suggest more than o
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COST AND PRICE OF RICE (see page 383)
COST AND PRICE OF RICE (see page 383)
This table may be supplemented by the following prices for (unpolished) rice in Tokyo: 1916, 13 yen 76 sen; 1917, 19 yen 84 sen; 1918, 32 yen 75 sen; 1919, 45 yen 99 sen. In the spring of 1921 the League for the Prevention of Sales of Rice ed that rice should not be sold under 35 yen per koku . The price passed the figure of 35 yen in July 1918. At the time the League's proposals were made the Ministry of Agriculture was quoted as stating that the cost of producing rice "is now 40 yen per koku .
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