SIR: With regard to the letter from Mrs. N. Jepson, published on your web page on February 13, may I be one of the many to remind her that Japan has, in fact, got a royal family, and has had for many years. However, she is right in noting that their collection of royal hangers on is somewhat smaller than in Britain, and their problems less public.

However, Japan is not a classless society. In fact, there

is an underclass, the burakumin, who are discriminated against in much the same way as the untouchables in India. The worst affected areas in the Kobe earthquake were burakumin areas, and rehousing those made homeless is a problem partly because of local reluctance to allow these 'lower class' people to move in. I have been asked many times to sign doorstep petitions to prevent the siting of public housing for these 'lower class' refugees in the neighbourhood.

The reasons for Japan's success do not lie in its social equality.

Dr.Stefan Kukula Kobe Steel Ltd, Japan Personally Speaking

aa0b921@giken.kobelco.co.jp http://www.kobelco.co.jp/ fax/tel:+81-78-99

http://www.angelfire.com/free/stefankukula.html fax-32056 tel-25641

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.