FINANCIAL CONDITIONS
of the population. The contrast is very striking. Japan differs from America in another respect also, namely, that few Japanese amass great fortunes in a lifetime. Of the 441 persons spoken of above, not more than sixty are nouveaux riches.
Reference may be made here to the question of Japan's gold-mining capacity, about which many doubts have been expressed by European and American writers. At present her annual output of the yellow metal is not quite two tons, a small contribution to the total of 470 tons produced throughout the world. Nevertheless the ratio of her auriferous area to the whole extent of her territory is a larger figure than that for any other country, her gold-mines being scattered all over the Empire from north to south. The trouble is that metallurgical art is very imperfectly developed. Various restrictions have hitherto debarred Western enterprise from entering this field, and the Japanese themselves lack capital, if not knowledge, to apply the latest scientific methods. Very little of the gold produced in former times remains in the country. Calculations indicate that between 1620 and 1766 about 15,000,000 sterling worth of the metal were exported to China and Holland, with at least an equal quantity of silver.
Rapid development of the country's resources has taken place during the Meiji era, and is still taking place. The conditions were never previously so favourable. All classes of the people
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