JAPAN: The Way of the Perfect. . . .

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In Tokyo the Japanese Diet & House of Peers will soon meet, after New Year's recess, to face the largest public debt in Japanese history and to make it still larger by authorizing loans stupendous enough to pay the Army & Navy's bills and balance the budget on paper.

Naturally, with the yen off gold, boundless State spending has already given Japan the fillip of an "inflation boom" (TIME, Jan. 2). When Japanese bankers mention the inevitable crash to Lieut.-General Araki, or indeed when any fiscal topic is broached to the War Minister, he says quietly, "That is not in my line."

In his line are Spartan days of work at the War Office. He and all his subordinates arrive at 8 a. m. Two days a week he breaks the morning by a horseback ride from 9 to 10 a. m. Lunching at the officers' mess, where both Japanese and Western food is served, he often orders ham & eggs, washes them down with tea at a total cost of one yen (50¢ at par, now about 7¢). Younger officers knock off about 4 o'clock for tennis or other sports. Not so the tireless oldsters and Lieut.-General Araki who is 55. He always works until 6, then goes to his club or directly home to a pleasant villa with a formal Japanese garden. On the walls hang Japanese paintings, many "not so good ones" done by brother officers. Absorbed in his great mission of "Japanism," the War Minister draws freely & frankly on Chinese authors for inspiration, paints Chinese characters deftly, devours Chinese poetry.