The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-05-03
Famine RACES
in Japan
By SEN KATAYAMA

Japan for its robber war against the r,eopIAi
Of China. Several million bushels Of rice are re-
served for the army il s.c-2~e Japanese i'm
per1allsm is reserving all resouIu cJ Ct the coun
try for the war, which is designed to develop
to one of the most disastrous attacks in the
history of the Far East
On the other hand, 100000 peasants are
starving in the districts of Hokkaido. Aomori.
1Wate and Akita Procedures Of the north
eastern part of Japan
The harvest amounted this year to practically
nothing in Hokkaido, since only 100000 chobu
zone chobu is 05 acreS) that means 80 per cent
OF the land area has been cultivated this year.
The situation is no better in Aomori Iwate and
Akita. In these Procedures so per cent of the
land Is so-called government land of Nikados
land. Starvation is therefore chronic regardless
of weather conditions in these districts In
1880 for instance. in the famous year of excel.
lent harvests, the famine did noe leave the Door
peasants of Northeastern Japan, since not so
much weather as social conditions big landlord
exploitation and rule is responsible for the per-
petualized famine
In the midst of deepening agrarian crisis
the peasant must pay enormous prices for rents. !
taxes, fertilizers and other industrial products
necessary for his small economy
The peasants are selling whatever they have
their eggs, their fowl, their agricultural imple-
ments, for little food, if they can get any.
There is very little food in these provinces
now. In autumn already the peasants ate roots
and rotten potatoes. Now the snow is still GOV.
er1ng the fields and forests. They don't get even
that. The school children can hardly go to
school, many of them are fainting during the
School hours since they did not eat anything for
days. Son1e of them suffer from night blank.
ness, which Is q consequence of nnalnutrition
And thA laTk x1to
Incredible things are happening in this land
OF unlimited pauperization. The press is, for in
stance quoting the story of an old peasant
whose son was sent to Manchuria The SOL
der then wrote a letter to his father from the
front. The father, however, could not pay the
few cents which were needed by the postage
So the letter went back to Manchuria. The
sons Of the family, the forthful youth, are taken
to China as cannon-fodder while the old ones
are left back in despair and starvation In a
few weeks they are coming back wounded.
mutilated, or never come back at ALL The Sec
ono and Eighth Divisions, which are recruited
from Aomori, Akita, Yamagata Iwate. have
clearly shown their protest against the imperial
list war of japan by series of mutinies at the
front.
The soldiers are getting disqueting news from
their parents. Instead of relief they are getting
the attention and the savage pressure of tax
and rent collectors. This, of course does not
mean that there is not loudly announced
emergency relief campaign to save the star
wing peasants by the government Only this
campaign does not help the peasants it helps
those who administer it and some rich kulaks
The Mikado sent its Chamberlain Kurota to the
famine districts, to show the great concern of
the august Emperor in the misery of his sub
1ects. He had to state after his return that "the
peasants are losing their national conscience and
dangerous ideas are spreading among them with
horrible force"
The peasants are fighting, indeed Tenants
are refusing to pay rents They rise In 1900
cases actual battles are recorded They are
burning the landlord houses capturing village
halls, attacking police stations. 1t is only ma
tural that in such situation the leaders of the
social-fascst party are raising slogans like POST
pone the Debt Payment" and other misleading
directives. Allied with them are the left-wtng
organizations and expelled groups of Communist
renegades
1t is the Japanese section of the Workers
International Relief which, with the active sup
port of the revolutionary trade unions and the
left wing of the peasant federation Of Japan,
that are carrying on thorough mobilization OF
the industrial centers for actual solidarity with
the struggling peasants of the northeast. They
demand the cancellation of rents and all debts
Of the poor peasants, the supply Of fertilizer
seed and instruments as well as the daily living
expenses of the poor peasant families by the gov
eminent. They also demand free collection of
fowl and the governments and Mikado's for
ests higher wages for the employed and imme-
date relief for the unemployed workers.
The national relief campaign was especially
successful in the factories of the Matsuo Com.
bine in Towio and among the cooperative So
versity created groups of the w. I. r. and are
campaigning for the peasants of Hokkaido.
School children are collecting for the relief drive
of the w. I. r.
300 or 400 workers were retained as perman-
ent help. The. bottom promptly proceeded to
drop out OF the real estate market Banks be.
hankrIInt urnro