Japan is based upon rice production there is room for the production of meat on a large scale. If the meat and wool are to be produced in Manchuria and Mongolia we shall see what we shall see. The significance of the experiment of the Manchuria Railway Company since 1913 in crossing merino and Mongolian sheep and the work which is being done on the sheep runs of Baron Okura in Mongolia cannot be overlooked. Ten years hence it will be interesting to examine industrially and socially the position of the woollen industry[272] and the animal industry in Japan and on the mainland, and the net gain that the country has made. FOOTNOTES: [264] _Yofuku_ means foreign clothes. [265] In 1920 there were 8,219 sheep in Japan, including 945 in Hokkaido. [266] A sheep produces about 7 lbs. of wool in the year. But this is the unscoured weight. In Japan, an expert assured me, it would not reach more than 56 to 60 per cent. when scoured. [267] "To-day sheep cannot, be kept on arable to leave any reward to the farmer."--_Country Life_, August 20, 1921. [268] See Appendix LXIX. [269] See Appendix LXX. [270] An immense amount of silk is used in Japanese men's clothing. The kimono, except the cheaper summer kind and the bath kimono _(yukata)_, which are cotton, is silk. So are the _hakama_ (divided skirt) and the _haori_ (overcoat). Japanese women's clothes are largely silk. The dress of working people is cotton, but even they have some silk clothing. [271] "By degrees they proceeded to all the stimulations of banqueting which was indeed part of their bondage."--Tacitus on the Britons under Roman influence. [272] The industry has already made on the London market an impression of competence in some directions. For production and exports, see Appendix LXX. CHAPTER XL 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 Scotland, and with a climate corresponding to the northerly situation of such a supposititious island, we may realise how remoteness and climatic limitations have hindered the progress of Hokkaido. "Our mode of living is not suited to the colder climate," an agricultural professor said to me. "Poor emigrants do not have money enough to build houses with stoves and properly fitting windows."