AN ODD ANGLE OF THE JAPANESE PROBLEM.

JAPAN'S SORROWS possess more than a sentimental interest for the United States, according to recent comment of men who have been investigating industrial conditions in the Oriental government.

In fact, the extremity in which sections of the island population has been reduced as a result of poor crops and upheavals of nature have a direct hearing upon the Japanese problem as it affects the United States.

Densely populated in periods of National prosperity, Japan becomes overpopulated when nature withholds bountiful harvests, or when the many volcanoes become restless and scourge humanity.

The line between sufficiency and want is thinly drawn. And in these days of more enlightened thought, the people are not content to starve and die with Oriental resignation to the awful decrees of adverse fate.

The Government cannot ignore the sufferings of the poor, as of old. To the contrary, it finds itself burdened with a new duty of providing some place where the unfortunate many may have opportunity to live, relieving, at the same time, the congestion in the home land.

The instant the Japanese considers emigration, he thinks of America. Like the poor of Europe, he sees in the United States the land of opportunity.

How long will it take the pressure of hunger-driven popular demand to make Japan forget its "gentleman's agreement" with the United States? How long would it take the United States to forget under similar circumstances?

Every catastrophe in the Oriental country, every material increase in its birth rate, every considerable decrease in its death rate adds to the pressure brought to bear upon the Government.

Poverty now compels Japan to steadfastly follow the ways of peace. Its attitude toward Huerta indicates its determination not to become involved in any dispute with the United States. It cannot afford to do so.

But given ten years for recuperation, an addition of several millions to its population and another series of insufficient harvests or natural upheavals, and the issue of Japanese want would not be settled solely on its own teeming acres or in the council chambers of its own Government.