In a statement issued in 1921 the Department of Agriculture reckoned the population at 145 per square kilometre and recorded the mean rate of increase “in recent years” as 12.06 per 1,000.  It stated that the density of the rural population was 44 per square kilometre or 9.42 per hectare of arable, in other words that the density “is higher than that of France, Belgium, Switzerland and some other countries where the agriculture is marked by fairly intensive methods.”  Mr. Nikaido, of the Bureau of Statistics, writes in the Japan Year-book that the annual increase of Japan’s population was 14.78 per 1,000 for 1909-13 and 12.06 for 1914-18, “a rate greater than in any civilised country, with the exception of Germany and Rumania in the pre-War years.”

The birth rate is high, but so is the mortality.  The death rate of minors is thrice that of Germany and Great Britain.  Here the increasing industrialisation of the country is no doubt playing its part.  The ratio of still births has steadily risen since the eighties.  The ratio of births, other than still births, per 1,000 of population, which in 1889-93 was 28.6, increased by 1909-13 to 33.7; but the death rate fell only from 21.1 to 20.6.  The ratio of unmarried, 63.22 in 1893, was 66.22 in 1918.

The following figures for Japan Proper are printed by the Financial and Economic Annual, issued by the Department of Finance: 

-------------------------------------------------------

--
Year. | Total.     |Annual Increase |Average Increase per
|            |of Population.  |1,000 Inhabitants.
---------------------------------------------------------
1910 | 50,716,600 |  —­            | 14.09}
1911 | 51,435,400 |718,800         | 14.17}
1912 | 52,167,000 |731,600         | 14.22}  14.21
1913 | 52,911,800 |744,800         | 14.28}
1914 | 53,668,600 |756,800         | 14.30}
|            |                |
1915 | 54,448,200 |779,600         | 14.53}
1916 | 55,235,000 |786,800         | 14.45}
1917 | 56,035,100 |800,100         | 14.49}  14.50
1918 | 56,851,300 |816,200         | 14.57}
1919 | 57,673,938 |822,638         | 14.47}
1920 | 55,961,140 |  —­            |  —­
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re>
It will be seen that for the year 1920 there was a
big drop.  The population of 55,961,140 for the
year 1920 is the actual population as returned by
the census; the figures of the preceding years are
“based,” it is explained to me, “on
the local registrars’ entries.  The national
census has demonstrated that the figures were larger
than the actual number of inhabitants, the discrepancies
being partly due to erroneous and duplicate registration
and partly to the exodus of persons to the colonies
or foreign countries whilst retaining their legal
domiciles at home.  But the table serves to show
the rate of increase.”  A million and three-quarters
is a substantial figure, however, to account for in
this way.  It would seem reasonable to suppose
that the increased cost of living, marriage at a later
age than formerly and increased mortality due directly
or indirectly to the factory system have arrested
the rate of increase of the population in recent years. 
For trustworthy figures of the Japanese population
we must await the next census and compare its figures
with those of the 1920 census, the first to be taken
scientifically.