The Japanese And The Soil

The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present... The Pacific Story. This is the story of the Pacific. The drama of the millions of people who live around its greatest sea, where the United States is now committed to a long-term policy of keeping the sea.

This is a documentary accomplished in the situation in the Pacific. Of the men and events, we start to day influencing world affairs for generations to come. The Japanese and the soil. The years of holding many farmers almost in slavery.

The Japanese land-genancy system is on its way out. I do not understand. It seems by father that we will have blamed of our own, and that we can work it for our sins. We will not have to divide our crops with our land bars.

That is right. How could we ever pay for land? We would have 30 years to pay 40. How can it be? We have never owned land, nor have any of our ancestors. Of Japan's 5,500,000 farm households, only about 1,700,000 owned all their land.

About 2,300,000 owned no land. Nearly 4,000,000 are tenant farmers. The Americans are changing things now, my father. The land is to be bought from the landlords by the government and is to be sold to us, and we will have 30 years to pay for it.

How can this be? Until now, 70% of the Japanese peasants have been either partially or wholly tenant farmers, with less than three acres on which to eat off the living. They have had little voice in the courts taken by the warlords.

Their sons have been taken by the armed services. Their daughters have worked in the fields or in the industries. the rapid industrialization of the last quarter of a century or so, Japan is still an agrarian nation. The people are tied to the soil. This is an American agricultural expert. Agriculture is the foundation of Japanese economy. To Jun Kusaku, the landless Japanese tenant farmer.