A speaker who followed said: "Remember to our credit how our area under cultivation in Old Japan continually increases.[279] Bear in mind, too, what good use we have made of the land we have been able to get under cultivation--so many thousand more _chō_ of crops than there are _chō_ of land, due, of course, to the two or three crops a year system in many areas."[280] "As for the situation the emigrants[281] leave behind them in Old Japan," resumed the first speaker, "the experiment should be tried of putting ten or so of tiny holdings[282] under one control, and an attempt should be made to see what improved implements and further co-operation[283] can effect. I suppose the thing most needed on the mainland is working capital at a moderate rate. Think of 900 million yen of farmers' debt, much of it at 12 per cent. and some of it at 20 per cent.! I do not reckon the millions of prefectural, county and village debt. Of what value is it to raise the rice crop to 3 or 4 _koku_ per _tan_ (60 or 80 bushels per acre)[284] if the moneylender profits most? The farmers of Old Japan are undoubtedly losing land to the moneyed people.[285] Every year the number of farmers owning their own land decreases[286] and the number of tenants increases and more country people go to the towns.[287] And, as an official statement says, 'the physical condition of the army conscripts from the rural districts is always superior to that of the conscripts of the urban districts.'" Some Western criticism of Japanese agriculture cannot be overlooked.[288] Criticism is naturally invited by (1) Japanese devotion to what is in Western eyes an exotic crop--but owing to exceptional water supplies, favourable climatic conditions and acquired skill in cultivation, the best crop for all but the extreme north-east of Japan;[289] (2) the small portions in which much of that crop is grown--of necessity; (3) the primitive implements--not ill-adapted, however, to a primitive cultural system; (4) the non-utilisation of animal or mechanical power in a large part of the country--due as much to physical conditions as to lack of cheap capital; (5) what is spoken of as "the never-ending toil"--against which must be set the figures I have quoted showing the number of farmers who do not work on an average more than 4 or 5 days a week; and (6) the moderate total production compared with the number of producers--which must be considered in reference to the object of Japanese agriculture and in relation to a lower standard of living. Japanese agriculture, as we have seen, has shortcomings, many of which are being steadily met; but with all its shortcomings it does succeed in providing, for a vast population per square _ri_, subsistence in conditions which are in the main endurable and might be easily made better.