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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Foundations of Japan, by J.W. Robertson Scott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: The Foundations of Japan
+       Notes Made During Journeys Of 6,000 Miles In The Rural Districts As
+       A Basis For A Sounder Knowledge Of The Japanese People
+
+Author: J.W. Robertson Scott
+
+Release Date: January 6, 2005 [EBook #14613]
+[Most recently updated: July 30, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Produced by Michael Ciesielski, Ronald Holder and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: BATH IN AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL]
+
+[Illustration: JŪJITSU (AND RIFLES) AT THE SAME SCHOOL.]
+
+YOUNG JAPAN
+
+[_Frontispiece_
+
+
+
+
+THE FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+FAR EASTERN
+
+THE PEOPLE OF CHINA
+JAPAN, GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WORLD.
+  (Nippon Eikoku oyobi Sekai.)
+THE IGNOBLE WARRIOR. (Koredemo Bushika.)
+THE NEW EAST. (Tokyo.) Vols. I, II & III.
+  (Edited.)
+
+AGRICULTURAL
+
+A FREE FARMER IN A FREE STATE. (Holland.)
+WAR TIME AND PEACE IN HOLLAND. (With
+  an Introduction by the late LORD REAY.)
+THE LAND PROBLEM: AN IMPARTIAL SURVEY
+SUGAR BEET: SOME FACTS AND SOME CONCLUSIONS.
+  A Study in Rural Therapeutics.
+THE TOWNSMAN'S FARM
+THE SMALL FARM
+POULTRY FARMING: SOME FACTS AND SOME
+  ILLUSIONS
+THE CASE FOR THE GOAT. (With Introductions
+  by the DUCHESS OF HAMILTON and SIR H.
+  RIDER HAGGARD.)
+COUNTRY COTTAGES
+THE STORY OF THE DUNMOW FLITCH
+IN SEARCH OF AN £150 COTTAGE. (Edited.)
+THE JOURNAL OF A JOURNEYMAN FARMER.
+  (Edited.)
+
+
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+
+
+THE FOUNDATIONS
+OF JAPAN
+
+NOTES MADE DURING JOURNEYS OF
+6,000 MILES IN THE RURAL DISTRICTS AS
+A BASIS FOR A SOUNDER KNOWLEDGE
+OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE
+
+BY J.W. ROBERTSON SCOTT
+
+("HOME COUNTIES")
+
+WITH 85 ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"In good sooth, my masters, this is no door, yet it is a little window"
+
+
+LONDON
+
+JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
+
+1922
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+SCOTT SAN NO OKUSAN
+
+FOR WHOLESOME CRITICISM
+
+
+
+
+A concern arose to spend some time with them that I might feel and
+understand their life and the spirit they live in, if haply I might
+receive some instruction from them, or they might be in any degree
+helped forward by my following the leadings of truth among them when
+the troubles of War were increasing and when travelling was more
+difficult than usual. I looked upon it as a more favourable
+opportunity to season my mind and to bring me into a nearer sympathy
+with them.--_Journal of John Woolman_, 1762.
+
+I determined to commence my researches at some distance from the
+capital, being well aware of the erroneous ideas I must form should I
+judge from what I heard in a city so much subjected to foreign
+intercourse.--BORROW.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The hope with which these pages are written is that their readers may
+be enabled to see a little deeper into that problem of the relation of
+the West with Asia which the historian of the future will
+unquestionably regard as the greatest of our time.
+
+I lived for four and a half years in Japan. This book is a record of
+many of the things I saw and experienced and some of the things I was
+told chiefly during rural journeys--more than half the population is
+rural--extending to twice the distance across the United States or
+nearly eight times the distance between the English Channel and John
+o' Groats.
+
+These pages deal with a field of investigation in Japan which no other
+volume has explored. Because they fall short of what was planned, and
+in happier conditions might have been accomplished, a word or two may
+be pardoned on the beginnings of the book--one of the many literary
+victims of the War.
+
+The first book I ever bought was about the Far East. The first leading
+article of my journalistic apprenticeship in London was about Korea.
+When I left daily journalism, at the time of the siege of the Peking
+Legations, the first thing I published was a book pleading for a
+better understanding of the Chinese.
+
+After that, as a cottager in Essex, I wrote--above a _nom de guerre_
+which is better known than I am--a dozen volumes on rural subjects.
+During a visit to the late David Lubin in Rome I noticed in the big
+library of his International Institute of Agriculture that there was
+no took in English dealing with the agriculture of Japan.[1] Just
+before the War the thoughts of forward-looking students of our home
+affairs ran strongly on the relation of intelligently managed small
+holdings to skilled capitalist farming.[2] During the early "business
+as usual" period of the War, when no tasks had been found for men over
+military age--Mr. Wells's protest will be remembered--it occurred to
+me that it might be serviceable if I could have ready, for the period
+of rural reconstruction and readjustment of our international ideas
+when the War was over, two books of a new sort. One should be a
+stimulating volume on Japan, based on a study, more sociological than
+technically agricultural, of its remarkable small-farming system and
+rural life, and the other a complementary American volume based on a
+study of the enterprising large farming of the Middle West. I proposed
+to write the second book in co-operation with a veteran rural reformer
+who had often invited me to visit him in Iowa, the father of the
+present American Minister of Agriculture. Early in 1915 I set out for
+Japan to enter upon the first part of my task. Mr. Wallace died while
+I was still in Japan, and the Middle West book remains to be
+undertaken by someone else.
+
+The Land of the Rising Sun has been fortunate in the quality of the
+books which many foreigners have written.[3] But for every work at the
+standard of what might be called the seven "M's"--Mitford, Murdoch,
+Munro, Morse, Maclaren, "Murray" and McGovern--there are many volumes
+of fervid "pro-Japanese" or determined "anti-Japanese" romanticism.
+The pictures of Japan which such easily perused books present are
+incredible to readers of ordinary insight or historical imagination,
+but they have had their part in forming public opinion.
+
+The basic fact about Japan is that it is an agricultural country.
+Japanese æstheticism, the victorious Japanese army and navy, the
+smoking chimneys of Osaka, the pushing mercantile marine, the
+Parliamentary and administrative developments of Tokyo and a costly
+worldwide diplomacy are all borne on the bent backs of _Ohyakusho no
+Fufu_,[4] the Japanese peasant farmer and his wife. The depositories
+of the authentic _Yamato damashii_ (Japanese spirit) are to be found
+knee deep in the sludge of their paddy fields.
+
+One book about Japan may well be written in the perspective of the
+village and the hamlet. There it is possible to find the way beneath
+that surface of things visible to the tourist. There it is possible to
+discover the _foundations_ of the Japan which is intent on cutting
+such a figure in the East and in the West. There it is possible to
+learn not only what Japan is but what she may have it in her to
+become.
+
+A rural sociologist is not primarily interested in the technique of
+agriculture. He conceives agriculture and country life as Arthur Young
+and Cobbett did, as a means to an end, the sound basis, the touchstone
+of a healthy State. I was helped in Japan not only by my close
+acquaintance with the rural civilisation of two pre-eminently
+small-holdings countries, Holland and Denmark, but by what I knew to
+be precious in the rural life of my own land.
+
+An interest in rural problems cannot be simulated. As I journeyed
+about the country the sincerity of my purpose--there are few words in
+commoner use in the Far East than sincerity--was recognised and
+appreciated. I enjoyed conversations in which customary barriers had
+been broken down and those who spoke said what they felt. We
+inevitably discussed not only agricultural economy but life, religion
+and morality, and the way Japan was taking.
+
+I spoke and slept in Buddhist temples. I was received at Shinto
+shrines. I was led before domestic altars. I was taken to gatherings
+of native Christians. I planted commemorative trees until more
+persimmons than I can ever gather await my return to Japan. I wrote so
+many _gaku_[5] for school walls and for my kind hosts that my memory
+was drained of maxims. I attended guileless horse-races. I was present
+at agricultural shows, fairs, wrestling matches, _Bon_ dances, village
+and county councils and the strangest of public meetings. I talked not
+only with farmers and their families but with all kinds of landlords,
+with schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, policemen, shopkeepers,
+priests, co-operative society enthusiasts, village officials, county
+officials, prefectural officials, a score of Governors and an Ainu
+chief. I sought wisdom from Ministers of State and nobles of every
+rank, from the Prince who is the heir of the last of the Shoguns down
+to democratic Barons who prefer to be called "Mr.", I chatted with
+farmers' wives and daughters, I interrogated landladies and mill
+girls, and I paid a memorable visit to a Buddhist nunnery. I walked,
+talked, rode, ate and bathed with common folk and with dignitaries. I
+discussed the situation of Japan with the new countryman in college
+agricultural laboratories and classrooms, and, in a remote region,
+beheld what is rare nowadays, the old countryman kneeling before his
+cottage with his head to the ground as the stranger rode past.
+
+I made notes as I traversed paddy-field paths, by mountain ways, in
+colleges, schools, houses and inns. It can only have been when
+crossing water on men's backs that I did not make notes. I jotted
+things down as I walked, as I sat, as I knelt, as I lay on my _futon_,
+as I journeyed in _kuruma_, on horseback, in jolting _basha_, in
+automobiles, in shaking cross-country trains and in boats; in
+brilliant sunshine and sweltering heat, in the shade and in dust; in
+the early morning with chilled fingers or more or less furtively as I
+crouched at protracted private or official repasts, or late at night
+endeavoured to gather crumbs from the wearing conversation of polite
+callers who, though set on helping me, did not always find it easy to
+understand the kind of information of which I was in search. One of
+these asked my travelling companion _sotto voce_, "Is he after metal
+mines?"
+
+I went on my own trips and on routes planned out for me by
+agricultural and social zealots, and from time to time I returned
+physically and mentally fatigued to my little Japanese house near
+Tokyo to rest and to write out from my memoranda, to seek data for new
+districts from the obliging Department of Agriculture and the
+Agricultural College people at the Imperial University, and to eat and
+drink with rural authorities who chanced to be visiting the capital
+from distant prefectures. I had many setbacks. I was misinformed, now
+and then intentionally and often unintentionally. There were many days
+which were not only harassing but seemingly wasted. I often despaired
+of achieving results worth all the exertion I was making and the money
+I was spending. I must have worn to shreds the patience of some
+English-speaking Japanese friends, but they never owned defeat. In the
+end I found that I made progress.
+
+But so did the War, which when I set out from London few believed
+would last long. I was troubled by continually meeting with incredible
+ignorance about the War, the issues at stake and the certain end. The
+Japanese who talked with me were 10,000 miles away from the fighting.
+Japan had nothing to lose, everything indeed to gain from the
+abatement of Europe's activities in Asia. Not only Japanese soldiers
+but many administrative, educational, agricultural and commercial
+experts had been to school in Germany. There was much in common in the
+German and Japanese mentalities, much alike in Central European and
+Farthest East regard for the army and for order, devotion to
+regulations, habit of subordination and deification of the State.
+Eventually the well-known anti-Ally campaign broke out in Tokyo, a
+thing which has never been sufficiently explained. Soon I was pressed
+to turn aside from my studies and attempt the more immediately useful
+task: to explain why Western nations, whose manifest interests were
+peace, were resolutely squandering their blood and wealth in War.
+
+If what I published had some measure of success,[6] it was because by
+this time, unlike some of the critics who sharply upbraided Japan and
+made impossible proposals in impossible terms, I had learnt something
+at first hand about the Japanese, because I wrote of the difficulties
+as well as the faults of Japan, and because I was now a little known
+as her well-wisher. One of the two books I published was translated as
+a labour of love, as I shall never forget, by a Japanese public man
+whose leisure was so scant that he sat up two nights to get his
+manuscript finished. Before long I had involved myself in the arduous
+task of founding and of editing for two years a monthly review, _The
+New East (Shin Toyo)_,[7] with for motto a sentence of my own which
+expresses what wisdom I have gained about the Orient, _The real
+barrier between East and West is a distrust of each other's morality
+and the illusion that the distrust is on one side only._
+
+The excuse for so personal a digression is that, when this period of
+literary and journalistic stress began, my rural notebooks and MSS.,
+memoranda of conversations on social problems and a heterogeneous
+collection of reports and documents had to be stowed into boxes. There
+they stayed until a year ago. The entries in a dozen of my little
+hurriedly filled notebooks have lost their flavour or are
+unintelligible: I have put them all aside. Neither is it possible to
+utilise notes which were submarined or lost in over-worked post
+offices. This book--I have had to leave out Kyushu entirely--is not
+the work I planned, a complete account of rural life and industry in
+every part of Japan, with an excursus on Korea and Formosa, and
+certain general conclusions: a standard work, no doubt, in, I am
+afraid, two volumes, and forgetful at times of the warning that "to
+spend too much Time in Studies is Sloth."
+
+What I had transcribed before leaving Japan I have now been able in
+the course of a leisured year in England to overhaul and to supplement
+by up-to-date statistics in an extensive Appendix. In the changed
+circumstances in which the book is completed I have also ruthlessly
+transferred to this Appendix all the technical matter in the text, so
+that nothing shall obstruct the way of the general reader. At some
+future date there may be by another hand a book about Japan in terms
+of soils, manures and crops. That is the book the War saved me from
+writing. In the present work I have the opportunity which so few
+authors have enjoyed of jettisoning all technics into an Appendix.
+
+[Illustration: _Shin Koron_
+"BYGONE DAYS IN JAPAN" IS THE TITLE OF THIS CARTOON]
+
+"It is necessary," says a wise modern author, "to meditate over one's
+impressions at leisure, to start afresh again and again with a clearer
+vision of the essential facts." And a Japanese companion of my
+journeys writes, "Never can you be sorry that this book is coming
+late. This time of delay has been the best time; we have had enough
+of first impressions." The justification for this volume is that, in
+spite of the difficulties attending the composition of it, it may be
+held to offer a picture of some aspects of modern Japan to be found
+nowhere else. Politics is not for these pages, nor, because there are
+so many charming books on æsthetic and scenic Japan, do I write on Art
+or about Fuji, Kyoto, Nara, Miyanoshita and Nikko. I went to Japan to
+see the countryman. The Japanese whom most of the world knows are
+townified, sometimes Americanised or Europeanised, and, as often as
+not, elaborately educated. They are frequently remarkable men. They
+stand for a great deal in modern Japan. But their untownified
+fellow-countrymen, with the training of tradition and experience, of
+rural schoolmasters and village elders, and, as frequently, of the
+carefully shielded army, are more than half of the nation.
+
+What is their health of mind and body? By what social and moral
+principles and prejudices are they swayed? To what extent are they
+adequate to the demand that is made and is likely to be made upon
+them? In what respects are they the masters of their lives or are
+mastered? In what ways are they still open to Western influences? And
+in what directions are they now inclined to trust to "themselves
+alone"?
+
+If the masters of the rural journal were sometimes mistaken in the
+observations they made from horseback, I cannot have escaped
+blundering in passing through more dimly lit scenes than they visited.
+"If there appears here and there any uncorrectness, I do not hold
+myself obliged to answer for what I could not perfectly govern."[8]
+But I have laboriously taken all the precautions I could and I have
+obeyed as far as possible a recent request that "visitors to the Far
+East should confine themselves to what they have seen with their own
+eyes." As Huxley wrote, "all that I have proposed to myself is to say,
+This and this have I learned."
+
+I take pleasure in recalling that some years ago I was approached with
+a view to undertaking for the United States Government a
+socio-agricultural investigation in a foreign country. Reared as I
+have been in the whole faith of a citizen of the English-speaking
+world, I am glad to think that the present volume may be of some
+service to American readers. The United States is within ten
+days--Canada is within nine--of Japan against Great Britain's month by
+the Atlantic-C.P.R.-Pacific route and eight weeks by Suez. There are
+more American visitors than British to Japan. It was America that
+first opened Japan to the West, and the debt of Japan to American
+training and stimulus is immense. But British services to Japan have
+also been substantial. Great Britain was the first to welcome her
+within the circle of the Great Powers, and the Anglo-Japanese Alliance
+did more for Japan than some Japanese have been willing to admit. The
+problem of Japan is the problem of the whole English-speaking world.
+Rightly conceived, the interests of the British Empire and the United
+States in the Far East are one and indivisible.
+
+The Japanese version of the title of this book (kindly suggested by
+Mr. Seichi Narusé) is _Nihon no Shinzui_, literally, "The Marrow" or
+"The Core of Japan." His Excellency the Japanese Ambassador, the
+beauty of whose calligraphy is well known, was so very kind as to
+allow me to requisition his clever brush for the script for the
+engraver; but it must be understood that Baron Hayashi has seen
+nothing of the volume but the cover.
+
+I greatly regret that the present conditions of book production make
+it impossible to reproduce more than one in thirty of my photographs.
+
+It is in no spirit of ingratitude to my hosts and many other kind
+people in Japan that I have taken the decision resolutely to strike
+out of the text all those names of places and persons which give such
+a forbidding air to a traveller's page. I have pleasure in
+acknowledging here the particular obligations I am under to Kunio
+Yanaghita, formerly Secretary of the Japanese House of Peers and a
+distinguished and disinterested student of rural conditions, Dr.
+Nitobe, assistant secretary of the League of Nations, and his wife,
+Professor Nasu, Imperial University, Mr. Yamasaki, Mr. M. Yanagi, Mr.
+Kanzō Uchimura, Mr. Bernard Leach, Mr. M. Tajima, Mr. Ono and two
+young officials in Hokkaido, who each in turn found time to join me on
+my journeys and showed me innumerable kindnesses. It was a piece of
+good fortune that while these pages were in preparation Mr. Yanaghita,
+Professor Nasu and other fellow-travellers were in Europe and
+available for consultation. Professor Nasu unweariedly furnished
+painstaking answers to many questions, and was kind enough to read all
+of the book in proof; but he has no responsibility, of course, for the
+views which I express. I am also specially indebted to Dr. Kozai,
+President of the Imperial University, to Mr. Ito and other officials
+of the Ministry of Agriculture, to Mr. Tsurimi, one of the most
+understanding of travelled Japanese, to Mr. Iwanaga, formerly of the
+Imperial Railway Board, to Dr. Sato, President of Hokkaido University,
+and his obliging colleagues, to the Imperial Agricultural Society, to
+Professors Yahagi and Yokoi, and to Viscount Kano, Dr. Kuwada, Mr. I.
+Yoshida, Mr. K. Ohta, Mr. H. Saito, Mr. S. Hoshijima, and many
+provincial agricultural and sociological experts.
+
+Portions of drafts for this book have appeared in the _Daily
+Telegraph, World's Work, Manchester Guardian, New East, Asia, Japan
+Chronicle_ and _Christian World_. I am indebted to the _World's Work_
+and _Asia_ for some additional illustrations from blocks made from my
+photographs, and to the _New East_ for some sketches by Miss Elizabeth
+Keith.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] There is a small book by an able American soil specialist, the
+late Professor King, which describes through rose-tinted glasses the
+farming of Japan, and of China and Korea as well, on the basis of a
+flying trip to countries the population of which is thrice that of
+Great Britain and the United States together. The author of another
+book, published last year, delivers himself of this astonishing
+opinion: "The Japanese is no better fitted to direct his own
+agriculture than I am to steer a rudderless ship across the Atlantic."
+
+[2] _Vide_ Sir Daniel Hall's _Pilgrimage of English Farming_ and
+articles of mine in the _Nineteenth Century_ and _Times_, and my _Land
+Problem_.
+
+[3] The Japanese have only lately, however, made some acknowledgment
+of their debt to Hearn, and in an eight-page bibliography of the best
+books about Japan in the _Japan Year Book_ Murdoch's as yet unrivalled
+_History_ is not even mentioned.
+
+[4] _Ohyakusho_ must not be confused with _Oo-hyakusho_ or
+_Oo-byakusho_, which means a large farmer. _O_ is a polite prefix;
+_Oo_ or _O_ means large.
+
+[5] Horizontal wall writings.
+
+[6] About 35,000 copies of my two bilingual books were circulated.
+
+[7] With the backing of a London Committee composed of Lord Burnham,
+Sir G.W. Prothero, Mr. J. St. Loe Strachey and Mr. C.V. Sale.
+
+[8] Tenison, 1684.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+STUDIES IN A SINGLE PREFECTURE (AICHI)
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+      I. THE MERCY OF BUDDHA
+
+     II. "GOOD PEOPLE ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY PRECAUTIOUS"
+
+    III. EARLY-RISING SOCIETIES AND OTHER INGENUOUS ACTIVITIES
+
+     IV. "THE SIGHT OF A GOOD MAN IS ENOUGH"
+
+      V. COUNTRY-HOUSE LIFE
+
+     VI. BEFORE OKUNITAMA-NO-MIKO-KAMI
+
+    VII. OF "DEVIL-GON" AND YOSOGI
+
+
+THE MOST EXACTING CROP IN THE WORLD
+
+   VIII. THE HARVEST FROM THE MUD
+
+     IX. THE RICE BOWL, THE GODS AND THE NATION
+
+
+
+BACK TO FIRST PRINCIPLES: THE APOSTLE AND THE ARTIST
+
+      X. A TROUBLER OF ISRAEL
+
+     XI. THE IDEA OF A GAP
+
+
+ACROSS JAPAN (TOKYO TO NIIGATA AND BACK)
+
+   XII. TO THE HILLS (TOKYO, SAITAMA, TOCHIGI AND FUKUSHIMA)
+
+  XIII. THE DWELLERS IN THE HILLS (FUKUSHIMA)
+
+   XIV. SHRINES AND POETRY (NIIGATA AND TOYAMA)
+
+   XV. THE NUN'S CELL (NAGANO)
+
+
+IN AND OUT OF THE SILK PREFECTURE
+
+   XVI. PROBLEMS BEHIND THE PICTURESQUE
+        (SAITAMA, GUMMA, NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)
+
+  XVII. THE BIRTH, BRIDAL AND DEATH OF THE
+        SILK-WORM (NAGANO)
+
+ XVIII. "GIRL COLLECTORS" AND FACTORIES
+        (NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)
+
+   XIX. "FRIEND-LOVE-SOCIETY'S" GRIM TALE
+
+
+FROM TOKYO TO THE NORTH BY THE WEST COAST
+
+     XX. "THE GARDEN WHERE VIRTUES ARE
+         CULTIVATED" (FUKUSHIMA AND YAMAGATA)
+
+    XXI. THE "TANOMOSHI" (YAMAGATA)
+
+
+BACK AGAIN BY THE EAST COAST
+
+   XXII. "BON" SONGS AND THE SILENT PRIEST
+         (YAMAGATA, AKITA, AOMORI, IWATE,
+         MIYAGI, FUKUSHIMA AND IBARAKI)
+
+  XXIII. A MIDNIGHT TALK
+
+
+THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU
+
+  XXIV. LANDLORDS, PRIESTS AND "BASHA"
+        (TOKUSHIMA, KOCHI AND KAGAWA)
+
+   XXV. "SPECIAL TRIBES" (EHIME)
+
+  XXVI. THE STORY OF THE BLIND HEADMAN (EHIME)
+
+
+THE SOUTH-WEST OF JAPAN
+
+  XXVII. UP-COUNTRY ORATORY (YAMAGUCHI)
+
+ XXVIII. MEN, DOGS AND SWEET POTATOES (SHIMANE)
+
+   XXIX. FRIENDS OF LAFCADIO HEARN (SHIMANE, TOTTORI AND HYOGO)
+
+
+TWO MONTHS IN TEMPLE (NAGANO)
+
+    XXX. THE LIFE OF THE PEASANTS AND THEIR PRIESTS
+
+   XXXI. "BON" SEASON SCENES
+
+
+IN AND OUT OF THE TEA PREFECTURE
+
+  XXXII. PROGRESS OF SORTS (SHIDZUOKA AND KANAGAWA)
+
+ XXXIII. GREEN TEA AND BLACK (SHIDZUOKA)
+
+
+EXCURSIONS FROM TOKYO
+
+  XXXIV. A COUNTRY DOCTOR AND HIS NEIGHBOURS (CHIBA)
+
+   XXXV. THE HUSBANDMAN, THE WRESTLER AND
+         THE CARPENTER (SAITAMA, GUMMA AND TOKYO)
+
+  XXXVI. "THEY FEEL THE MERCY OF THE SUN"
+         (GUMMA, KANAGAWA AND CHIBA)
+
+
+REFLECTIONS IN HOKKAIDO
+
+ XXXVII. COLONIAL JAPAN AND ITS UN-JAPANESE WAYS
+
+XXXVIII. SHALL THE JAPANESE EAT BREAD AND MEAT?
+
+  XXXIX. MUST THE JAPANESE MAKE THEIR OWN "YOFUKU"?
+
+     XL. THE PROBLEMS OF JAPAN
+
+
+APPENDICES
+
+INDEX
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+BATH IN AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL _facing title-page_
+
+JŪJITSU (AND RIFLES) AT THE SAME SCHOOL
+
+BYGONE DAYS IN JAPAN
+
+THE ROOM IN WHICH THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
+
+THE MERCY OF BUDDHA
+
+"TO ROUSE THE VILLAGE YOU MUST FIRST ROUSE THE PRIEST"
+
+PLAN OF THE FARMER'S SYMBOLIC TREES
+
+ADJUSTED RICE-FIELDS
+
+LIBRARY AND WORKSHED OF A Y.M.A.
+
+LANDOWNER'S SON AND DAUGHTER
+
+SHRINE IN A LANDOWNER'S HOUSE
+
+MR. YAMASAKI, DR. NITOBE, AUTHOR AND PROF. NASU
+
+THE HOUSE IN WHICH THE TEA CEREMONY TOOK PLACE
+
+AUTHOR QUESTIONING OFFICIALS
+
+AUTHOR PLANTING COMMEMORATIVE TREES
+
+RICE POLISHING BY FOOT POWER
+
+"HIBACHI," A FLOWER ARRANGEMENT AND "KAKEMONO"
+
+SCHOOL SHRINE CONTAINING EMPEROR'S PORTRAIT
+
+FENCING AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL
+
+WAR MEMENTOES--ALL SCHOOLS HAVE SOME
+
+A 200-YEARS-OLD DRAWING OF THE RICE PLANT
+
+SCATTERING ARTIFICIAL MANURE IN ADJUSTED
+PADDIES
+
+PLANTING OUT RICE SEEDLINGS
+
+PUSH-CART FOR COLLECTION OF FERTILISER
+
+MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE'S EFFORTS TO KEEP PRICE OF RICE DOWN
+
+MUZZLED EDITORS
+
+"THE JAPANESE CARLYLE"
+
+MR. AND MRS. YANAGI
+
+CHILDREN CATCHING INSECTS ON RICE-SEED BEDS
+
+MASTERS OF A COUNTRY SCHOOL AND SOME CHILDREN
+
+CULTIVATION TO THE HILL-TOPS
+
+IMPLEMENTS, MEASURES AND MACHINES, AND A BALE OF RICE
+
+MOVABLE STAGE AT A FESTIVAL
+
+FARMHOUSE AT WHICH MR. UCHIMURA PREACHED
+
+TENANT FARMERS' HOUSES
+
+AUTHOR AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING"
+
+SOME PERFORMERS AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING"
+
+IN A BUDDHIST NUNNERY
+
+JAPANESE GRASS-CUTTING TOOLS COMPARED WITH A SCYTHE
+
+CHILD-COLLECTORS OF VILLAGERS' SAVINGS
+
+NUNS PHOTOGRAPHED IN A "CELL"
+
+STUDENTS' STUDY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL
+
+TEACHERS OF A VILLAGE SCHOOL
+
+GIRLS CARRYING BALES OF RICE
+
+SERICULTURAL SCHOOL STUDENTS
+
+SILK FACTORIES IN KAMISUWA
+
+VILLAGE ASSEMBLY-ROOM
+
+ARCHERY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL
+
+CULTIVATION OF THE HILLSIDE
+
+RAILWAY STATION "BENTO" AND POT OF TEA
+
+A SCARECROW
+
+THE BLIND HEADMAN AND HIS COLLECTING-BAG
+
+MR. YANAGHITA IN HIS CORONATION CEREMONY ROBES
+
+PORTABLE APPARATUS FOR RAISING WATER
+
+VILLAGE SCHOOL WITH PORTRAIT OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
+
+RIVER-BEDS IN THE SUMMER
+
+SCHOOL SHRINE FOR EMPEROR'S PORTRAIT
+
+AUTHOR ADDRESSING LAFCADIO HEARN MEETING
+
+A PEASANT PROPRIETOR'S HOUSE
+
+GRAVESTONES REASSEMBLED AFTER PADDY ADJUSTMENT
+
+TEMPLE IN WHICH THIS CHAPTER WAS WRITTEN
+
+FIRE ENGINE AND PRIMITIVE FIGURES
+
+YOUNG MEN'S CLUB-ROOM
+
+MEMORIAL STONES
+
+ROOF PROTECTED AGAINST STORMS BY STONES
+
+OFF TO THE UPLAND FIELDS
+
+FARMER'S WIFE
+
+MOTHER AND CHILD
+
+A CRADLE
+
+FIRE ALARM AND OBSERVATION POST
+
+RACK FOR DRYING RICE
+
+VILLAGE CREMATORIUM
+
+DOG HELPING TO PULL JINRIKISHA
+
+AUTHOR, MR. YAMASAKI AND YOUNGEST INHABITANTS
+
+"TORII" AT THE SHRINE OF THE FOX GOD
+
+TABLETS RECORDING GIFTS TO A TEMPLE
+
+INSIDE THE "SHOJI"
+
+AUTOMATIC RICE POLISHER
+
+AUTHOR IN A CRATER
+
+A TYPE OF WAYSIDE MONUMENTS
+
+GIANT RADISH OR "DAIKON"
+
+CUTTING GRASS
+
+
+
+
+CURRENCY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
+AND OFFICIAL TERMS
+
+
+The prices given in the text (but not in the footnotes and Appendix) were
+recorded before the War inflation began. The War was followed by a
+severe financial crisis. Professor Nasu wrote to me during the summer of
+1921:
+
+"You are very wise to leave the figures as they stood. It is useless
+to try to correct them, because they are still changing. The price of
+rice, which did not exceed 15 yen per koku when you were making your
+research work, exceeded 50 yen in 1919, and is now struggling to
+maintain the price of 25 yen. Taking at 100 the figures for the years
+1915 or 1916--fortunately there is not much difference between these
+two years--the prices of six leading commodities reached in 1919 an
+average of about 250. After 1919 the prices of some commodities went
+still higher, but mostly they did not change very much; on the other
+hand, recently the prices of many commodities--among them rice and raw
+silk especially--have been coming down and this downward movement is
+gradually extending to all other commodities. From these
+considerations I deduce that the index number of general commodities
+may be safely taken as 200 when your book appears. _The reader of your
+book has simply to double the figures given by you--that is the
+figures of_ 1915 _and_ 1916--_in order to get a rough estimate of
+present prices._"
+
+Where exact statements of area and yield are necessary, as in the
+study of the intense agriculture of Japan, local measures are
+preferable to our equivalents in awkward fractions. Further, the
+measures used in this book are easily remembered, and no serious study
+of Japanese agriculture on the spot is possible without remembering
+them. While, however, Japanese currency, weights and measures have
+been uniformly used, equivalents have been supplied at every place in
+the book where their omission might be reasonably considered to
+interfere with easy reading. The following tables are restricted to
+currency, weights and measures mentioned in the book.
+
+
+MONEY[9]
+
+_Yen_ = roughly (at the time notes for the book were made) a florin or half
+a dollar = 100 sen.
+
+_Sen_ = a farthing or half cent = 10 rin.
+
+
+LONG
+
+_Ri_ = roughly 2-1/2 miles.
+
+_Shaku_ (roughly 1 ft.) = 11.93 in.
+
+Ri are converted into miles by being multiplied by 2.44.
+
+
+SQUARE
+
+_Ri_ (roughly 6 sq. miles) = 5.955 sq. miles.
+
+_Chō_ (sometimes written, _Chōbu_) (roughly 2-1/2 acres) = 2.450 acres =
+10 tan = 3,000 tsubo.
+
+_Tan_ or _Tambu_ (roughly 1/4 acre) = 0.245 acres = 10 se = 300 bu.
+
+_Bu_ or _Tsubo_ (roughly 4 sq. yds.) = 3.953 sq. yds.
+
+An acre is about 4 tan 10 bu or 1,200 bu or tsubo (an urban measure).
+The size of rooms is reckoned by the number of mats, which are ordinarily
+6 shaku in length and 3 shaku in breadth.
+
+
+CAPACITY
+
+_Koku_ (roughly 40 gals, or 5 bush.) = 39.703 gals, or 4.960 bush. =
+10 tō. According to American measurements, there are 47.653 gals,
+(liquid) and 5.119 bush, (dry) in a koku. A koku of rice is 313-1/2 lbs.
+(British).
+
+A koku of imported rice is, however, 330-1/2 lbs. The following koku must
+also be noted: ordinary barley, 231 lbs.; naked barley 301.1 lbs.; wheat
+288.7 lbs.; proso millet, 247.9 lbs.; foxtail millet, 280.9 lbs.; barnyard
+millet, 165.2 lbs.; brickaheat, 247.9 lbs.; maize, 289.2 lbs.; soya beans,
+286.5 lbs.; azuki (red) beans, 319.9 lbs.; horse beans, 266.6 lbs.; peas,
+306.5 lbs.
+
+_Hyō_ (roughly 2 bush.) = 1.985 bush. = 4 tō = bale of rice.
+
+_Tō_ (roughly 4 gals, or 1/2 bush.) = 3.970 gals, or .496 bush, or
+1.985 pecks = 10 shō.
+
+_Shō_ (roughly 1-1/2 qts.) = 1.588 qts. or 0.198 pecks or 108-1/2
+cub. in. = 10 gō.
+
+_Gō_ (roughly 1/3 pint) =.3176 pints or 0.019 pecks.
+
+Rice is not bagged but baled, and a bale is 4 tō or 1 hyō.
+
+
+WEIGHT
+
+_Kwan_ or _kwamme_ (roughly 8-1/4 lbs.) = 8.267 lbs. av. or 10.047 lbs.
+troy = 1,000 momme.
+
+_Kin_ (catty) = 1.322 lbs. av. or 1.607 troy = 160 momme.
+
+_Momme_ = 2.116 drams or 2.411 dwts. According to American measurements
+a momme is 0.132 oz. av. and 0.120 oz. troy.
+
+_Hyakkin_ (_picul_) = 100 kin = 132.277 lbs.
+
+A stone is 1.693, a cwt. is 13.547, and a ton 270.950 kwamme.
+
+
+LOCAL ADMINISTRATIVE TERMS
+
+_Ken_.--Prefecture. There are forty-three ken and Hokkaido. Ken
+and fu are made up of the former sixty-six provinces. Sometimes the name
+of the ken and the name of the capital of the ken are the same: example,
+Shidzuoka-ken, capital Shidzuoka.
+
+_Fu_.--Three prefectures are municipal prefectures and are called not
+ken but fu. They are Tokyo-fu, Kyoto-fu and Osaka-fu.
+
+_Gun_ (_kōri_).--Division of a prefecture, a county or rural district.
+There are 636 gun. Gun are now being done away with.
+
+_Shi_.--City. There are seventy-nine cities.
+
+_Cho_.--A town or rather a district preponderatingly urban. There are
+1,333 cho.
+
+_Machi_.--Japanese name for the Chinese character cho.
+
+_Son_.--A village or rather a district preponderatingly rural. There are
+10,839 son.
+
+_Mura_.--Japanese name for a Chinese character son.
+
+A true idea of the Japanese village is obtained as soon as one mentally
+defines it as a commune. There may be a rural community called son
+or a municipal community called cho. The cho or son consists of a number of
+oaza, that is, big aza, which in turn consists of a number of ko-aza or
+small aza. A ko-aza may consist of twenty or thirty dwellings, that is,
+a hamlet, or it may be only one dwelling. It may be ten acres in extent
+or fifty. I found that the population of a particular municipality was
+10,000 in seven big oaza comprising twenty-two ko-aza.
+
+[Illustration: THE ROOM, OVERLOOKING THE PACIFIC, IN WHICH MUCH OF
+THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
+The feet of the chair and table are fitted with wooden slats so as not
+to injure the _tatami_. Electricity as a matter of course!]
+
+[Illustration: THE MERCY OF BUDDHA
+The worshippers in the front row lost relatives by a flood.
+This is not the priest referred to in Chapter I.]
+
+
+
+
+THE
+FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN
+
+STUDIES IN A SINGLE PREFECTURE
+(AICHI)[10]
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE MERCY OF BUDDHA
+
+The only hard facts, one learns to see as one gets older, are the
+facts of feeling. Emotion and sentiment are, after all, incomparably
+more solid than any statistics. So that when one wanders back in
+memory through the field one has traversed in diligent search of hard
+facts, one comes back bearing in one's arms a Sheaf of
+Feelings.--HAVELOCK ELLIS.
+
+
+One day as I walked along a narrow path between rice fields in a
+remote district in Japan, I saw a Buddhist priest coming my way. He
+was rosy-faced and benign, broad-shouldered and a little rotund. He
+had with him a string of small children. I stood by to let him pass
+and lifted my hat. He bowed and stopped, and we entered into
+conversation. He told me that he was taking the children to a
+festival. I said that I should like to meet him again. He offered to
+come to see me in the evening at my host's house. When he arrived, and
+I asked him, after a little polite talk, what was the chief difficulty
+in the way of improving the moral condition of his village, he
+answered, "I am."
+
+We spoke of Buddhism, and he complained that its sects were "too
+aristocratic." When his own sect of Buddhism, Shinshu, was started, he
+said, it was something "quite democratic for the common people." But
+with the lapse of time this democratic sect had also "become
+aristocratic." "Though the founder of Shinshu wore flaxen clothing,
+Shinshu priests now have glittering costumes. And everyone has heard
+of the magnificence of the Kyoto Hongwanji" (the great temple at
+Kyoto, the headquarters of the sect).[11] "Contrary to the principles
+of religion and democracy," people thought of the priest and the
+temple "as something beyond their own lives." All this stood in the
+way of improvement.
+
+The fashion in which many landowners "despised exertion and lived
+luxuriously" was another hindrance. These men looked down on
+education, "thinking themselves clever because they read the
+newspapers." Landlords of this sort were fond of curios, and kept
+their capital in such things instead of in agriculture. Sellers of
+curios visited the village too often. A wise man had called the
+curio-seller the "Spirit of Poverty" (_Bimbogami_). He said that the
+Spirit visited a man when he became rich--in order to bring curios to
+him; and again when he became poor--in order to take them away from
+him! After he became poor the Spirit of Poverty never visited him
+again.
+
+Yet another drawback to rural progress was petty political ambition.
+People slandered neighbours who belonged to another party and they
+would not associate with them. Such party feeling was one of the bad
+influences of civilisation.
+
+Further, "a mercenary spirit and materialism" had to be fought in the
+village. There was not, however, much trouble due to drink, and there
+was no gambling now. There might still be impropriety between young
+people--formerly young men used to visit the factory girls--but it was
+rare. Lately there had been land speculation, and some of those who
+made money went to tea-houses to see geisha.
+
+There was in the neighbourhood, this Buddhist pastor went on, a temple
+belonging to the same sect as his own, and he was on friendly terms
+with its priest. It was good discipline, he said, for two priests to
+be working near one another if they were of the same sect, for their
+work was compared. In answer to my enquiry, the old man said that he
+preached four days a month. Each service consisted of reading for an
+hour and then preaching for two hours. About 150 or 200 persons would
+attend. He had also a service every morning from five to six. In
+addition to these gatherings in the temple he conducted services in
+farmers' houses. "I feel rather ashamed sometimes," he said, "when I
+listen to the good sermons of Christians."
+
+As the priest was taking leave he told me that he was going to a
+farmer's house in order to conduct a service. I asked to be allowed to
+accompany him. He kindly agreed, and invited me to stay the night in
+his temple.
+
+When I reached the farmhouse there were there about two dozen kneeling
+people, including members of the family. On the coming of the priest,
+who had gone to the temple to put on his robes, the farmer threw open
+the doors of the family shrine and lighted the candles in it. The
+priest knelt down by the shrine and invited me to kneel near him. In a
+few words he told the people why I was in the district. Whereupon the
+farmer's aged mother piped, "We heard that a tall man had come, but to
+think that we should see him and be in the same room with him!"
+
+When he had prayed, the priest read from a roll of the Shinshu
+scripture which he had taken reverently from a box and a succession of
+wrappings. Afterwards he preached from a "text," continuing, of
+course, to kneel as we did. A flickering light fell upon us from a
+lamp hanging from a beam. The room was pervaded with incense from an
+iron censer which the farmer gently swung. The worshippers told their
+beads, and in intervals between the priest's sentences I heard the
+murmur of fervent prayer. The priest preached his sermon with his eyes
+shut, and I could watch him narrowly. It is not so often that one sees
+an old man with a sweet face. But there was sweetness in both the face
+and voice of this priest. He spoke slowly and clearly, sometimes
+pausing for a little between his sentences as if for better
+inspiration, as a Quaker will sometimes do in speaking at meeting. His
+tones were no higher than could be heard clearly in the room. There
+was nothing of the exhorter in this man. His talk did not sound like
+preaching at all. It was like kind, friendly talk at the fireside at a
+solemn time. "Faith, prayer, morality: these alone are necessary," was
+the burden of the simple address. "We have faith by divine providence;
+out of our thanksgiving comes prayer, and we cannot but be good." It
+was plain that the old women loved their priest. In the front of the
+congregation were three crones gnarled in hands and face. When the
+sermon of an hour or so came to an end they spoke quaveringly of the
+mercy of Buddha to them, and of their own feebleness to do well. The
+old priest gently offered them comfort and counsel.
+
+After the service, in the light of the priest's paper lantern, I made
+my way along the road to the temple. At length I found myself mounting
+the lichened stone steps to the great closed gates. The priest drew
+the long wooden bolt and pushed one gate creakingly back. We went by a
+paved pathway into the deeper shadow of the temple. Then a light
+glowed from the side of the building, and we were in the priest's
+house. It was like a farmer's house only more refined in detail.
+
+About half-past four in the morning I was awakened by the booming of
+the temple bell. It is the sound which of all delights in the Far East
+is most memorable. I got up, and, following the example of my host,
+had a bath in the open, and dressed.
+
+Then I was lighted along passages into the public part of the temple.
+The priest with an acolyte began service at the middle altar.
+Afterwards he proceeded to a side altar. At one stage of the service
+he chanted a hymn which ran something like this:
+
+From the virtues and the mercies of divine providence we
+    get faith, the worth of which is boundless.
+The ice of petty care and trouble which froze our hearts
+    is melted.
+It has become the water of divine illumination, bearing
+    us on to peace.
+The more care and trouble, the greater the illumination
+    and the reward.
+
+I knelt on the outside of the congregational group. It was cold as
+the great doors were slid open from time to time and the kneeling
+figures grew in number to about forty. Day broke and a few sparrows
+twittered by the time the first part of the service was over.
+
+The priest then took up his lamp and low table, and, coming without
+the altar rail, knelt down in the midst of the congregation. In this
+familiar relation with his people he delivered a homily in a
+conversational tone. Buddha was to mankind as a father to his
+children, he said. If a man did bad things but repented, his father
+would be more delighted than if he got rich. The way of serving Buddha
+was to feel his love. To ask of the rich or of a master was
+supplication, but we did not need to supplicate Buddha. Our love of
+Buddha and his love for us would become one thing. Carelessness, an
+evil spirit, doubt: these were the enemies. Gold was beautiful to look
+at, but if the gold stuck in one's eyes so that one could not see, how
+then? The true essence of belief was the abandonment of ourselves to
+divine providence.
+
+So the speaker went on, pressing home his thoughts with anecdote or
+legend. There was the tale of a woman whose character benefited when
+her husband became a leper. Another story was of an injured lizard
+which was fed for many days by its mate. We were also told of a
+mischievous fellow who tried to anger a believer. The ne'er-do-weel
+went to the man's house and called him a liar. The believer thanked
+him for his faithful dealing, and said that it might be true that he
+was a liar. He would be glad, he said, to be given further advice
+after his wife had warmed water in order that his visitor might wash
+his feet. "The mind of the vagabond was thereupon changed."
+
+The rays of light from the lamp illumined the large Buddha-like shaven
+head and mild countenance of the priest and the labour-worn faces of
+his flock around him. Two weatherbeaten men curiously resembled
+Highland elders. I saw that they, an old woman and a young mother with
+a child tied on her back kept their eyes fixed on the preacher. It was
+plain that in the service they found strength for the day.
+
+I was in a reverie when the priest ended his talk. To my
+embarrassment he begged me to come with him within the altar rail and
+speak to the people. I had been quickened to such a degree by the
+experience of the previous night and by this service at dawn that I
+stood up at once. But there seemed to be not one word at my call, and
+my knees knocked because of cold and shyness. I grasped the chilly
+brass altar rail, and, as I met the gaze of friendly, sun-tanned,
+care-rutted alien faces, which yet had the look of "kent folk," I
+marvellously found sentence following sentence. What I said matters
+nothing. What I felt was the unity of all religion, my veneration for
+this rare priest, a sense of kinship with these worshippers of another
+race and faith, and a realisation of the elemental things which lie at
+the basis of international understanding. Several old men and women
+came up to me and bowed and made little speeches of kindness and
+cordiality. Six was striking on a clock in the priest's house as the
+doors of the temple were slid open, the great cryptomeria[12] which
+guard the village fane stood forth augustly in the morning light, and
+the congregation went out to its labour.
+
+As I knelt at breakfast and ate my rice and pickles and drank my
+_miso_ soup,[13] the priest, after the manner of a Japanese with an
+honoured guest, did not take food but waited upon me. He asked if the
+English clergy wore a costume which marked them off from the people.
+He liked the way of some of our preachers who wore ordinary clothes
+and eschewed the title of "reverend." He was also taken by the idea of
+the Quaker meeting at which there is silence until someone feels he
+has a message to utter. As to the future of Buddhism, he deeply
+regretted to say that many priests were a generation behind the age.
+If the priests were "more democratic, better educated and more truly
+religious," then they might be able to keep hold of young men. He knew
+of one priest in Tokyo who had a dormitory for university students.
+
+The priest presented his wife, a kindly woman full of character. "This
+is my wife," he said; "please teach her." I spoke of a kind of
+kindergarten which I had learnt had been conducted at the temple for
+five years. "We merely play with the children," she said. "I had the
+plan of it from the kindergarten of a missionary," her husband added.
+The priest and his wife were kneeling side by side in the still
+temple-room looking out on their restful garden. Behind them was a
+screen the inscription on which might be translated, "We are to be
+thankful for our environment; we are to become content quite naturally
+by the gracious influence of the universe and by the strength of our
+own will."
+
+I could learn nothing from the priest concerning several helpful
+organisations which I had heard that the villagers owed to his
+influence and exertions. But the manager of the village agricultural
+association told me that for a quarter of a century Otera San (Mr.
+Temple) had superintended the education of the young people, that
+under his guidance the village had a seven years' old co-operative
+credit and selling society, 294 families belonged to a poultry
+society, 320 men and women gathered to study the doctrines of Ninomiya
+(whom we in the West know from a little book by a late Japanese
+Ambassador in London, called _For His People_), and the young men's
+association performed its discipline at half-past five in the morning
+in the winter and at four o'clock in the summer.
+
+[Illustration: "TO ROUSE THE VILLAGE YOU MUST FIRST ROUSE THE PRIEST"
+(Autograph of Otera San)]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[9] Exchange in 1916; in 1921 the yen is worth 2s. 8d.
+
+[10] The chapters in this section are based on notes of several visits
+paid to Aichi, which is in the middle of Japan, and agriculturally and
+socially one of the most interesting of the prefectures. It is three
+prefectures distant from Tokyo.
+
+[11] Throughout this book an attempt has been made to preserve in
+translation something of the character of the Japanese phraseology.
+
+[12] _Cryptomeria japonica_, or in Japanese, _sugi_, allied to the
+sequoia, yew and cypress.
+
+[13] _Miso_, bean paste.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"GOOD PEOPLE ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY PRECAUTIOUS"
+
+Je ne propose rien, je n'impose rien, j'expose.--_De la liberté du travail_
+
+
+He had been through Tokyo University, but his hands were rough with
+the work of the rice fields. "I resent the fact that a farmer is
+considered to be socially inferior to a townsman," he said. "I am
+going to show that the income of a farmer who is diligent and skilful
+may equal that of a Minister of State. I also propose to build a fine
+house, not out of vanity, but in order to show that an honest farmer
+can do as well for himself as a townsman."
+
+When I asked the speaker to tell me something about himself he went
+on: "My father was a follower of a pupil of the great Ninomiya.
+Schools of frugal living and high ideals were common in the Tokugawa
+period.[14] The object sought was the education of heart and spirit.
+At night when I was in bed my father used to kneel by me,[15] his
+eldest son, and say, 'When you grow big you must become a great man
+and distinguish our family name.' This instruction was given to me
+repeatedly and it went deeply into my heart."
+
+"When I became a young man," he continued, "I had two friends. We made
+promises to each other. One said, 'I will become the greatest scholar
+in Japan.' The second said, 'I will become the greatest statesman.'
+The third, myself, said, 'I will be the greatest rice grower in this
+country.' If we all succeeded we were to build beautiful houses and
+invite each other to them.
+
+"I did not graduate at the University because, by the entreaty of my
+father, when I reached twenty-one, I left Tokyo in order to become a
+practical farmer. It is twenty-one years since I began farming. I
+consulted with skilful agriculturists and then I saw my way to make a
+plan. Rice in my native place is inferior. I improved it for three or
+four years. I gained the first gold prize at the prefectural show.
+Some years later I obtained the first prize at the exhibition which
+was held by five prefectures together. Later still I received the
+first prize at the exhibition for eighteen prefectures, also the first
+prize at the exhibition of the National Agricultural Association.
+Further, I was appointed a judge of rice and travelled about.
+
+"I consumed a great deal of time in doing this public work. One day I
+was made to think. A collector for a charity said in my hearing that
+he expected larger subscriptions from practical men because though
+public men were esteemed by society their economic power was small. I
+at once resolved that before doing any more public work I should put
+myself in a sound financial position.
+
+"As I thought over the matter it seemed to me that it was not to be
+expected that a public man should be able to do his really best work
+if his financial position were not sound. Again, could he have lasting
+influence with people in practical affairs if his own practical
+affairs were not in good order?[16] At any rate I determined not to go
+out to any more exhibitions or lectures except those which were
+remunerative, and I resolved to devote myself as my first duty to my
+farming.
+
+"I set to work and managed my land, 3 _chō_ (a _chō_ is 2-1/2 acres),
+so as to obtain the gross income of an M.P. [The reader could scarcely
+have a more striking illustration of the intensity with which Japanese
+land is cultivated--the average area is under 3 acres per family.] I
+am now working about 4 _chō_ (10 acres). Later on I am going to farm 7
+_chō_ (15-1/2 acres) and from that I am expecting the income of a
+Minister.[17] I have already collected the materials for my villa, for
+I am approaching my goal. One of my two friends, who is also forty
+years of age, is a distinguished chemist in the Imperial Agricultural
+College. My other friend, who is forty-four, is Secretary of the
+Korean Government."
+
+The indomitable experimenter swallowed another cupful of tea and
+declared that "in order to be prosperous, all the members of the
+family must work." All the members of his family did work. His wife
+was strong and there were five healthy children. He used the ordinary
+farm implements and his livestock consisted of only a horse and a few
+hens. The home farm was five miles from the station. The outlying
+farms were scattered in five villages--"there are always spendthrift
+lazy fellows willing to sell their land." "I have a firm belief," the
+speaker added complacently, "that agriculture is the most honest, the
+most sincere, the most interesting, the most secure and the most
+profitable calling."
+
+"Very often," he went on, "good people are not sufficiently
+precautious"--I give the excellent word coined by my interpreter.
+"They spend for the public good, and in the end they are left poor.
+Renowned, rich families have come to a miserable condition by such
+action. What they have done may have been good. But they are reduced
+to pauperism and they are laughed at by many persons. People jeer that
+they pretended to do good, yet they could not do good to themselves.
+If all people who work for the public benefit are laughed at at
+last--and many are--it will come to be thought that to work for the
+public benefit is not good. Therefore I think that the man who would
+work for the public good must be careful in his own affairs. He must
+not be a poor man if he is to help public business. However
+philanthropic he may be, if his financial position is not strong he
+cannot go on long. He will be stopped on his good way. He cannot help
+other people. Therefore I am now gathering wealth for strengthening
+my financial position as a means to attain the higher end."
+
+As the speaker awaited my judgment on his career, I ventured to
+suggest that gifts, qualities and inspiration which made a man a
+public man did not necessarily equip him for being a great success in
+business life. The question was, perhaps, whether the type of man who
+was pre-eminently successful in promoting his own pecuniary interests
+was necessarily the best type of public man. Was the average character
+equal to the strain of many years of concentration on money-making to
+the exclusion of public interests? When men emerged from the sphere of
+concentrated money-making, were they worth so very much as public men?
+Might not the values of things have altered a little for them? Might
+it not have a shrivelling effect on the heart to resist applications
+which must be refused when the strengthening of one's financial
+position was regarded as the chief object in life?
+
+At this point our host, Mr. Yamasaki, the respected principal of the
+big agricultural school of the prefecture and a well-known rural
+author and speaker, broke in with the ejaculation, "He has got a
+needle in your head"--the Japanese equivalent for "touching the
+spot"--and continued: "Surely he is right who through his life offers
+freely what he may have as to members of his own family. I give away
+many pamphlets and I have guests. I could save in these directions.
+But I am not doing it. I am content if I can support my family. I gave
+a savings book to each of my five children. When the boy becomes
+twenty-one he will have enough to finish at the university or start as
+a small merchant so as not to be a parasite. My girls will be provided
+with enough to furnish the costs of modest marriage. If I did more I
+might perhaps become greedy."
+
+I cannot say that the farmer who had so kindly outlined his life's
+programme was impressed either by our host's views or by mine, but he
+told us that he now spent 5 per cent. of his income on public
+purposes, and that 150 yen received for giving lectures was spent on
+books and recreation "for enlarging mind and heart." He happened to
+mention that, though his family was of the Zen sect of Buddhism, he
+was a Shintoist. It is difficult to believe that a genuine Buddhist
+could have evolved such a life scheme. There is certainly a Shinto
+symbolism in his plan of tree planting before his house. He has set
+there, in the order shown, eleven pines which he named as marked:
+
+[Illustration: PLAN OF THE ELEVEN SYMBOLIC TREES WHICH THE FARMER PLANTED
+OUTSIDE HIS HOUSE AND THE EVILS (REPRESENTED BY ARROWS)
+FROM WHICH THEY ARE SHIELDING HIM]
+
+The virtues inscribed on this plan are the guardians of the farmer and
+his family, which is represented in the middle of it. The words behind
+the arrows represent the character of the attacks to which the farmer
+conceives himself and his family to be exposed. Courage is imagined as
+going before and Wisdom as protecting the rear.
+
+The talk turned to some advice which had been given to farmers to lay
+out "economic gardens." They were to plant no trees but fruit trees.
+To this an old farmer of our company replied: "If you are too
+economical your children will become mercenary. Some families were too
+economical and cut down beautiful trees, planting instead economical
+ones. Those families I have seen come to an evil end. The man who
+exercises rigid economy may be a good man, but his children can know
+little of his real motives and must be wrongly influenced by his
+conduct." We all agreed that there was nowadays too much talk about
+money-making in rural Japan. "Even I," laughed the owner of the
+symbolic trees, "planted not persimmons but pines."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[14] That is, before the Revolution of half a century ago, when the
+Tokugawa Shogun resigned his powers to the Emperor.
+
+[15] The Japanese bed, _futon_, consists of a soft mattress of cotton
+wool, two or three inches thick. It is spread on the floor, which
+itself consists of mats of almost the same thickness, 6 ft. long by 3
+ft. wide.
+
+[16] Most of the really big men of Australia have left political life
+in comparatively impoverished circumstances. Not only did Sir Henry
+Parkes die poor. Sir George Reid took the High Commissionership in
+London; Sir Graham Berry was provided with a small annuity; Sir George
+Dibbs was made the manager of a State savings bank; Sir Edmund Barton
+was lifted to the High Court Bench.--_Times_, January 11, 1921.
+
+To the last day of his life, executions were levied in his
+house.--Rosebery on Pitt.
+
+[17] For his figures see Appendix I.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+EARLY-RISING SOCIETIES AND OTHER INGENUOUS
+ACTIVITIES
+
+I should be heartily sorry if there were no signs of partiality. On the
+other hand, there is, I trust, no importunate advocacy or tedious
+assentation.--MORLEY
+
+
+"The alarum clocks for waking us at four o'clock in the summer and
+five in the winter"--it was the chairman of a village Early-Rising
+Society who was speaking to me--are placed at the houses of the
+secretaries, and each member is in turn a secretary. The duty of a
+secretary, when the alarum clock strikes, is to get up and visit the
+houses of all the members allotted to him and to shout for the young
+men until they answer. Each member on rising walks to the house of the
+secretary of his division and writes his name on the record of
+attendances. Then the member goes to the shrine, where we fence and
+wrestle for a time. At first we thought that if we fenced and wrestled
+early in the morning we should be tired for our work, but we found
+that it was not so.
+
+"Sometimes a clock gets damaged and does not ring, so a few of us may
+be getting up later that morning. Or a man becomes afraid of sleeping
+too late, fears his clock is wrong, and gets up at 3 o'clock and then
+goes off to waken members. Hence complaints. Some cunning fellows ask
+their friends or brothers to write down for them their names on the
+list of attendances. But we find out their deceit by their
+handwriting. It is very difficult to form the habit of early rising,
+because members are not expected to report at the secretaries' houses
+on a rainy day. As there is no control over them that day, they are
+easy in their minds and sleep on. Thus they break the habit of early
+rising that they are forming. Getting up early is necessary not only
+because it is good to begin work early but because early rising
+overcomes the habit of gadding about at night which is customary in
+many villages.
+
+"You may say that all this is a great deal to ask of young men," the
+chairman continued. "But if you ask from them comfortable practices
+only, how can you expect from them a remarkable result? Young men
+should ponder this and be willing to exert themselves." Later on it
+was explained to me that it had been found that it took a great deal
+of time for the secretaries to call up all the members in the morning
+by shouting to them, "so the secretary obtained bugles; but even the
+bugles were not heard everywhere, so they were changed to drums, and
+now five drums go round our village every morning."
+
+In every village of Japan there is a young men's association, which is
+by no means to be confounded with the world-encircling Y.M.C.A.[18]
+The village Y.M.A. of Japan is an institution of some antiquity and it
+has nothing whatever to do with religious effort. One day, when I was
+staying in a rural district, I was invited to a remoter part in order
+to see something of the discipline that the members of a group of
+young men's associations were imposing on themselves. The members of
+this group of Y.M.A. belonged to the branches established in a village
+of nineteen _aza_, that is hamlets. This fact, with the further fact
+that the village containing the nineteen _aza_ had four elementary
+schools and one higher school, will show that a Japanese village may
+be much larger than a Western one.
+
+Nearly six hundred young men were in the parade. They were dressed
+exactly alike in the tight blue calico trousers and kimono of jacket
+length which the Japanese farmer ordinarily wears. Each man had the
+usual _obi_ (waist scarf) tied round his kimono, and in the _obi_ was
+thrust the small cotton towel which Japanese carry with them
+everywhere. The young men wore puttees, _waraji_ (straw sandals) and
+caps. It is only of late that the Japanese worker has taken to wearing
+head-gear, or at any rate head-gear other than he could contrive with
+his towel. The physical condition of the young fellows was good and
+their evolutions with dummy "rifles" were smart and skilful. The
+paraders seemed lost in their desire to do their best for their
+credit's sake and their own good. After the first movements, the
+"troops" with "rifles" held as if there were bayonets at the end, made
+rushes with loud cries. The secret of this somewhat surprising display
+far away in the heart of Japan was that the work of the young men had
+been done under the direction of two fit, be-medalled army surgeons,
+reserve officers, who were present in order to answer my questions.
+
+Every morning half an hour before sunrise these Y.M.A. members
+assemble in the grounds of their Shinto shrine or of their school,
+where they exercise until the sun shows itself. In the evenings after
+work they also fence, wrestle, lift weights and develop their wrists.
+This wrist development is done by two youths grasping a pole, one at
+either end, and then trying to rotate it one against the other.
+
+The members endeavour to cultivate their minds as well as their
+bodies, and they also observe in their dress a self-denying ordinance.
+On ceremonial occasions they permit themselves to wear a full-length
+kimono and the _hakama_ or divided skirt, but they deny themselves the
+third article of a Japanese man's full dress, the _haori_ or silk
+overcoat. An effort is also made to dispense with the use of
+"luxurious" _geta_ (the national wooden pattens).[19]
+
+The object of all this varied discipline is to develop physique,
+self-control, self-respect and what the Japanese call the spirit of
+association, or, as we might say, good fellowship. The spirit of
+association is needed in order to promote greater administrative,
+educational and social efficiency. The modern Japanese village is no
+longer an historical but a political unit which covers a considerable
+district. It is, as I have explained, a combination of clusters of
+_aza_ (hamlets). Each of these _aza_ has its local sentiment, and this
+local sentiment when untouched by outside influences tends to become
+selfish, narrow and prejudiced. If, however, anything is to be done in
+the development of rural life there must be co-operation between
+_aza_ for all sorts of objects.
+
+I was assured that in addition to the development of physique, _moral_
+and the spirit of association, there was to be seen, under the
+influence of the Y.M.A., a development of good manners and mental
+nimbleness. A special result of early rising and discipline in one
+area had been that "the habit of spending evening hours idly has died
+away, immorality has diminished, singing loudly and foolishly and
+boasting oneself have disappeared, while punctuality and respect for
+old age have increased." I was even assured that parents--whom no true
+Japanese would ever dream of attempting to reform at first
+hand--parents, I say, moved by the physical and mental advance in
+their sons, have "begun to practise greater punctuality."
+
+After the drilling was over I was taken to a large elementary school
+and was called upon to address the young men, who were kneeling in
+perfect files. Mr. Yamasaki followed me and told the youths that
+Japanese were not so tall as they might be, and that therefore their
+physique "must be continuously developed." Nor were rural conditions
+all they should be from a moral point of view. Therefore, "every
+desire which interferes with the development of your health or
+morality must be overcome."
+
+Let me speak of another village. It numbers a thousand families and it
+rises in the morning and goes to bed at night by the sound of the
+bugle. It has five public baths and a notice-board of news "to enlarge
+people's ideas." The shopkeepers are said to "work very diligently, so
+things are cheaper." The education of such of the young men as are
+exempted from military service is continued on Saturday evenings for
+four years. The Y.M.A., in addition to the military discipline,
+fencing, wrestling, weight-lifting and pole-twisting of which I have
+spoken, exercises itself in handwriting--which many Japanese practise
+as an art during their whole lifetime--and in composing the
+conventional short poem. I was gravely informed that "the custom of
+spending money on sweet-stuff is decreasing." What this really means
+is that the young men were not frequenting the sweet-stuff shops,
+which are staffed by girls who are in many cases a greater temptation
+than the sweets. The worthy members of this association had "burnt
+their _geta_."
+
+In some places Y.M.A. members give their labour when a school teacher
+or a fellow member is building his house, or they do repairs at the
+school. Bicycle excursions are made to neighbouring villages in order
+to participate in inter-Y.M.A. debates, or to study vegetable raising,
+fruit culture or poultry keeping. The Japanese are much given to
+"taking trips," and the special training which they receive at school
+in making notes and plans results in everybody having a notebook and
+being able to sketch a rough route-plan for personal use, or for a
+stranger who may ask his way.
+
+Not a few associations favour members cutting each other's hair once a
+fortnight, thus at one and the same time saving money and curbing
+vanity. Several Y.M.A.s publish cyclostyled monthlies. Others minutely
+investigate the economic condition of their villages. Some Y.M.A.s
+provide public "complaint boxes," and have boards up asking for
+friendly help for soldiers billeted in the district. One association
+has issued instructions to its members that they are not to ride when
+in charge of ox-drawn carts. The reason is that the ox is only
+partially under control and may injure a pedestrian--unwittingly, I am
+sure, for the gentleness of the ox and even of the bull in harness
+arrests one's attention. Many Y.M.A.s devote themselves to cultivating
+improved qualities of rice or to breaking up new land. Sometimes the
+land of the Shinto shrine is cultivated. I have heard of Y.M.A.s in
+remote parts having handed over to them the exclusive sale of _saké_.
+
+I find a Y.M.A. counselling its members "not to speak vulgar words in
+a crowd." There is also among the members of Y.M.A.s a certain
+addiction to diary keeping for moral as well as economic purposes. The
+diaries are distributed by the associations and "afterwards examined
+and rewarded"--a plan which would hardly work in the West. There are
+Y.M.A.s which make a point of seeing off conscripts with flags and
+music. Others have fallen on the more economical plan of "writing to
+the conscript as often as possible and helping with labour the family
+which is suffering from the loss of his services." By some Y.M.A.s
+"old people are respected and comforted." More than one association
+has a practice of serving out red and black balls to its members at
+the opening of every new year, when good resolutions are in order, and
+at the end of the year recalling either the red or the black according
+to the degree to which the publicly announced good resolutions have
+been kept. Among the good resolutions are: to worship at the Shinto
+shrine or the Buddhist temple regularly, to be tidier, to be more
+efficient in cropping the land, to undertake work for the common good,
+to have a secondary occupation in addition to farming, to sit with
+more decorum at meals, to rise earlier, to visit the graves of
+ancestors monthly, to be more considerate to parents or elder
+brothers, and "not to remain idly at people's houses."
+
+One Y.M.A. decrees that a member found in a tea-house in conversation
+with a geisha shall be fined 20 yen. There is even a village in which
+the young men's association and the young women's association have
+united to issue a regulation providing that at night time members, in
+order that their doings shall be public, shall carry lanterns painted
+with the ideographs of their societies.[20]
+
+With regard to the young women's associations, I found that one of
+them studied domestic matters and good manners, "asking questions and
+receiving answers." The motto of the organisation was "Good Wives and
+Good Mothers." A member, this Society believes, should be "polite,
+gentle and warm-hearted, but with a strong will inside and able to
+meet difficulties." Her hairdressing and clothes "should not be
+luxurious," and she "must not run after fashions." She must "respect
+Buddha and abandon sweet-eating," for "taking food between meals is
+bad for your health, for economy and for your posterity."
+
+Let us now hear something of Societies for the Cultivation of Rice by
+Schoolboys. The lads become responsible for the cultivation of a _tan_
+of their family land, or of a small paddy, and they work it themselves
+with the help of such advice as the schoolmaster may give them. (The
+cultivation of a _tan_ of a paddy, a quarter of an acre, is supposed
+to need in a year about twenty-one days' labour of a man working from
+sunrise to sunset.) The report of one boy to which I turned in a
+collection of reports by members of a rice-cultivation society showed
+that he was between fourteen and fifteen. His diary of work and
+observations was as follows:
+
+  _June_ 5.--4 _to_ of herring applied.
+
+  _June_ 7.--Locusts and other insects arrive.[21]
+
+  _June_ 20.--153 clumps of rice transplanted from the seed bed.[22]
+
+  _July_ 11.--Rice cultivated and 4 _to_ of herring applied.
+
+  _July_ 27.--First weeding.
+
+  _Aug_. 6.--Second weeding.
+
+  _Aug_. 8.--Locusts again.
+
+  _Aug_. 11.--Third weeding.
+
+  _Sept_. 10.--All ears shot.
+
+  _Oct_. 10.--Some plants suffering from bacillus.
+
+It was further noted that the soil was sandy, that cold spring water
+was percolating through the bottom of the paddy field, that the
+aeration of the soil was bad and that some plants were laid by wind.
+The young farmer appended to his report an excellent plan. He received
+marks as follows: Method of planting, 15; levelling, 20; provision
+against insects, 5; general attention, 25; total, 65. Some boys got as
+many as 99 marks.
+
+A word concerning a Village Association for Promoting Morality. One of
+the things it does is to assemble yearly the whole population, old and
+young, "in order to get friendly." The police meanwhile keep an eye
+open for strangers who might take it into their heads to visit the
+village on that day and help themselves from the houses. I may quote
+three poems in rough translations from a speech made by a priest at
+the annual meeting:
+
+The legs of a horse, the rudder of a boat, the pin of a fan,
+    and the sincerity of a man.
+Let your heart be pure and true and you need not pray
+    for the protection of the gods.
+The bride brings many things with her to her new home,
+    but one thing more, the spirit of sincerity, will not
+    encumber her.
+
+After these varied accounts of rural merit, I could not but listen
+with attention to a tale of village gamblers, the offence of gambling
+having been "introduced by the excavators on the new railway." First
+the headman fined a dozen young men. Then he made a raid and found
+among the village sinners several members of his own council. "The
+salaried officials were at a loss to know what to do, and proposed to
+resign. But the headman brought the prisoners together before the
+whole body of officials. He spoke of the sufferings of the troops in
+Manchuria and the heroic deaths among them. (It was the time of the
+Russian war.) 'Lest your offences should come to be known by our
+soldiers and discourage them,' said the headman, 'I cannot but
+overlook your conduct.' It is thought that gambling practically ceased
+from that time."
+
+Local officials have a way of making the most of historic events in
+order to touch the imagination of their villagers. Many original
+undertakings were begun, for example, under the inspiration of the
+Coronation. One village set about raising a fund by a system of
+taxation under which inhabitants contribute according to the following
+tariff:
+
+  Birth of a child, 10 sen (that is, 2-1/2 d. or 5 cents).
+  Wedding, 15 sen.
+  Adoption, 15 sen.
+  Graduation from the primary school, 10 sen; advanced
+      school, 20 sen.
+  Teacher or official on appointment, 2 per cent. of salary;
+      when salary is increased, 10 per cent. of increase.
+  When an official receives a prize of money from his
+      superior, 5 per cent.
+  Every villager to pay every quarter, 1 sen.
+
+On the basis of this assessment it is expected that fifty-seven years
+after the Coronation such a sum will have been accumulated as will
+enable the villagers to live rate free. Some villages have
+thanksgiving associations in connection with Shinto shrines. Aged
+villagers are "respected by being blessed before the shrine and by
+being given a present." Worthy villagers who are not aged "receive
+prizes and honour."
+
+More than once when I went to a village I was welcomed first by a
+parade of the Y.M.A., then by the school children in rows, and finally
+in the school grounds by two lines of venerable members of an
+Ex-Public Servants' Association. The object of an E.P.S.A. is to
+strengthen the hands of the present officials and to give honour to
+their predecessors. A headman explained to me: "If ex-officials fell
+into poverty or lacked public respect, people would not be inclined to
+work for the public good. A former clerk in the village office whom
+everybody had forgotten was working as a labourer. But as a member of
+the association he was seen to be treated with honour, so the children
+were impressed. The funeral of such a man is apt to be lonely, but
+when this man died all the members of the association attended his
+funeral in ceremonial dress and offered some money to his memory.[23]
+His honour is great and the villagers say, 'We may well work for the
+public benefit.'"
+
+Every village in Japan has a Village Agricultural Association. One
+V.A.A., which belongs to a village of less than 6,000 people, sees the
+fruit of its labours in the existence of "322 good manure houses." The
+gift of a plan and the grant of a yen had prompted the building of
+most of them. Then the organisation incites its members to cement the
+ground below their dwellings. This is not so much for the benefit of
+the farmer and his family as for the welfare of their silkworms. A fly
+harmful to silkworms winters in the soil, but it cannot find a
+resting-place in concrete.
+
+[Illustration: A WIDE EXPANSE OF ADJUSTED RICE-FIELDS.]
+
+A word may also be said about the way in which silkworm rearers have
+been induced by the V.A.A. to keep the same breed of caterpillar, so
+facilitating bulking of cocoons at the association's co-operative
+sales. A small library of silkworm-culture books has been started in
+the village, and there is a special pamphlet for young men which
+they are urged to keep in "their pockets and to study ten minutes each
+day." A general library has 2,400 volumes divided into eight
+circulating libraries. The cost of the building which provides the
+library in chief, a meeting hall and also a storehouse for cocoons has
+been defrayed by the commissions charged for the co-operative sale of
+cocoons.
+
+[Illustration: LIBRARY AND WORKSHED OF A YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION.]
+
+Again, there used to be no cattle in the village, but now, thanks to
+the purchase of young animals by the association, and thanks to
+village shows, there are 103.
+
+There is a competition to get the biggest yield of rice, and there is
+also "an exhibition of crops." This exhibition incidentally aims at
+ending trouble between landlord and tenants due to complaints of the
+inferiority of the rice brought in as rent. (Paddy-field rent is
+invariably paid in rice.) These complaints are more directly dealt
+with by the V.A.A. arbitrating between landlords and tenants who are
+at issue. In addition to rice crop and cattle shows in the village,
+there is a yearly exhibition of the prod ucts of secondary industries,
+such as mats, sandals and hats.
+
+The V.A.A. is also working to secure the planting of hill-side waste.
+Some 300,000 tree seedlings have been distributed to members of the
+Y.M.A., who "grow them on," and, after examination and criticism,
+plant them out. I must not omit to speak of the V.A.A.s' distribution
+of moral and economic diaries of the type already referred to. The
+villagers, in the spirit of boy-scoutism, are "advised to do one good
+thing in a day." I saw several of these diaries, well thumbed by their
+authors after having been laboured at for a year. One young farmer
+noted down on the space for January 2 that he said his prayers and
+then went _daikon_[24] pulling, and that _daikon_ pulling (like our
+mangold pulling) is a cold job.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] There are, however, 11,000 members of Y.M.C.A. in Japan. There is
+also a Y.W.C.A. with a considerable membership.
+
+[19] See Appendix II.
+
+[20] For official action in regard to the Y.M.A.s, see later.
+
+[21] The damage done by insects is estimated at 10 million yen a year.
+In some parts locusts are roasted and eaten.
+
+[22] For an account of the processes of rice cultivation, see Chapter
+IX.
+
+[23] It is the practical Japanese custom to make a gift of money to a
+family on the occasion of a death. The Emperor makes a present to the
+family of a deceased statesman.
+
+[24] The giant white radish which reaches 2 or 3 ft. in length and 3
+in. or more in diameter. There is also a correspondingly large
+turnip-shaped sort.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+"THE SIGHT OF A GOOD MAN IS ENOUGH"
+
+It has been said that we should emulate rather than imitate them.
+All I say is, Let us study them.--MATTHEW ARNOLD
+
+
+For seven years in succession the men, old, middle-aged and young, who
+had done the most remarkable things in the agriculture of the
+prefecture had been invited to gather in conference. I went to this
+annual "meeting of skilful farmers." Among the speakers were the local
+governor and chiefs of departments who had been sent down by the
+Ministry of Agriculture and the Home Office. According to our ideas,
+everybody but the unpractised speakers--the expert farmers who were
+called from time to time to the platform--spoke too long. But the
+kneeling audience found no fault. Indeed, a third of it was taking
+notes. It was an audience of seeking souls.
+
+One of the impromptu speakers, a white-haired, toil-marked farmer,
+told how forty years before he had gone to the next prefecture and
+opened new land. "With his spectacles and moustache," explained the
+chairman--if the man who takes the initiative from time to time at a
+Japanese meeting may be properly called a chairman--"he looks like a
+gentleman; but he works hard." And the man showed his hands as a
+testimony to the severity of his labours.
+
+"It was in the winter," he said, "that I went away from my home and
+obtained a certain tract of waste. I had no acquaintance near. I
+brought some food, but when I fell short I had no more. I had gone
+with my third boy. We lived in a small hut and were in a miserable
+condition. Then a fierce wind took off the roof. It was at four in the
+morning when the roof blew off. In February I began to open a rice
+field. Gradually we got a _chō_. At length I opened another _chō_,
+but there was much gravel. Some of my newly opened fields are very
+high up the hill. If you chance to pass my house please come to see
+me. The maple leaves are very beautiful and you can enjoy the sight of
+many birds."
+
+The early meetings of the expert farmers used to last not one day but
+two, for the men delighted in narrating their experiences to one
+another. Some of the audience used to weep as the older men told their
+tales. The farmers would sit up late round a farmer or a professor who
+was talking about some subject that interested them. The originator of
+these gatherings, Mr. Yamasaki, told me that he was "more than once
+moved to tears by the merits and pure hearts of the farmer speakers."
+
+Of the regard and respect which the farmers had for this man I had
+many indications. Like not a few agricultural authorities, he is a
+samurai.[25] He is exceptionally tall for a Japanese, looks indeed
+rather like a Highland gillie, and when one evening I prevailed on him
+to put on armour, thrust two swords in his _obi_ and take a long bow
+in his hand, he was an imposing figure. He carries the ideals of
+_bushido_ into his rural work. He does not sleep more than five hours,
+and he is up every morning at five.
+
+But I am getting away from the meeting. There was a priest who spoke,
+a man curiously like Tolstoy. (He had, no doubt, Ainu blood in him.)
+He wore the stiff buttoned-up jacket of the primary school teacher and
+spoke modestly. "Formerly the rice fields of my village suffered very
+much from bad irrigation," he said, "but when that was put right the
+soil became excellent. In the days when the soil was bad the people
+were good and no man suspected another of stealing his seal.[26] But
+when the soil became good the disposition of the people was influenced
+in a bad way, and they brought their seals to the temple to be kept
+safe.
+
+"At that time the organiser of this meeting came and made a speech in
+my village. On hearing his speech I thought it an easy task to make my
+village good. At once I began to do good things. I formed several
+men's and women's associations, all at once, as if I were Buddha. But
+the real condition of the people was not much improved. There came
+many troubles upon me, and our friend wrote a letter. I was very
+thankful, and I have been keeping that letter in the temple and bowing
+there morning and evening.
+
+"I began to ask many distinguished persons to help me. They influenced
+the farmers. The sight of a good man is enough. Speech is unnecessary.
+The villagers were not educated enough to understand moralisings or
+thinking, but the kind face of a good man has efficacy. There was a
+man in the village who was demoralised, and when I told of him to a
+distinguished man who lives near our village he sympathised very much.
+That distinguished man is eighty-four years old, but he accompanied
+that demoralised man for three days, giving no instruction but simply
+living the same life, and the demoralised man was an entirely changed
+man and ever thankful.
+
+"I am a sinful man. Sometimes it happens that after I have been
+working for the public benefit I am glad that I am offered thanks. I
+know it is not a good thing when people express gratitude to me, for I
+ought not to accept it. When I know I am doing a good thing and
+expecting thanks, I am not doing a good thing. My thanks must not come
+from men but from Buddha. I am trying to cast out my sinful feelings.
+It must not be supposed that I am leading these people. You skilful
+farmers kindly come to my village if you pass. You need not give any
+speech. Your good faces will do."
+
+But the two speeches I have reported are hardly a fair sample of the
+discourses which were delivered. The addresses of the earnest Tokyo
+officials and the Governor were directed towards urging on the farmers
+increased production and increased labour, and the duty was pressed
+upon them, as I understood, in the name of the highest patriotism and
+of devotion to their ancestors. This talk was excellent in its way,
+but when I got up I hazarded a few words on different lines. If I
+venture to summarise my somewhat elementary address it is because it
+furnishes a key to some of the enquiries I was to make during my
+journeys. I was told the next day that the local daily had declared
+that my "tongue was tipped with fire," which was a compliment to my
+kind and clever interpreter, who, when he let himself go, seemed to be
+able to make two or three sentences out of every one of mine:
+
+I said that my Japanese friends kept asking me my impressions, and one
+thing I had to say to them was that I had got an impression in many
+quarters of spiritual dryness. I dared to think that some
+responsibility for a materialistic outlook must be shared by the
+admirable officials and experts who moved about among the farmers.
+They were always talking about crop yields and the amount of money
+made, and they unconsciously pressed home the idea that rural progress
+was a material thing.
+
+But the rural problem was not only a problem of better crops and of
+greater production. Man did not live by food alone. Tolstoy wrote a
+book called _What Men Live By_, and there was nothing in it about
+food. Men lived not by the number of bales of rice they raised, but by
+the development of their minds and hearts. It might be asked if it was
+not the business of rural experts to teach agriculture. But a poet of
+my country had said that it took a soul to move a pig into a cleaner
+sty. It was necessary for a man who was to teach agriculture well to
+know something higher than agriculture. The teacher must be more
+advanced than his pupils. There must be a source from which the energy
+of the rural teacher must be again and again renewed. There must be a
+well from which he must be continually refreshed and stimulated. Some
+called that well by the name of religion, unity with God. Some called
+it faith in mankind, faith in the destiny of the world, that faith in
+man which is faith in God. But it must be a real belief, not a
+half-hearted, shivering faith.
+
+Agriculture was not only the oldest and the most serviceable calling,
+it was the foundation of everything. But the fact must not be lost
+sight of that agriculture, important and vital though it was, was only
+a means to an end. The object in view was to have in the rural
+districts better men, women and children. The highest aim of rural
+progress was to develop the minds and hearts of the rural population,
+and in all discussion of the rural problems it was necessary not to
+lose in technology a clear view of the final object.
+
+But when account is taken of all the drab materialism in the rural
+districts there remains a leaven of unworldliness. It takes various
+forms. Here is the story of a landlord at whose beautiful house I
+stayed. "When a tenant brings his rent rice to this landlord's
+storehouse," a fellow-guest told me, "it is never examined. The door
+of the storehouse is left unpadlocked, and the rent rice is brought by
+the tenant when he is minded to do so. No one takes note of his
+coming. If he meets his landlord on the road he may say, 'I brought
+you the rent,' and the landlord says, 'It is very kind of you.' It is
+an old custom not to supervise the tenants' bringing of the rent.
+
+"Nowadays, however, some tenants are sly. They say, 'Our landlord
+never looks into our payments. Therefore we can bring him inferior
+rice or less than the quantity.' The landlord loses somewhat by this,
+but it is not in accordance with the honour of his family to change
+the method of collecting his rent. He is now chairman of the village
+co-operative society as well as of the young men's society, and he
+aims to improve his village fundamentally."
+
+I also heard this narrative. The tenants in a certain place wished to
+cultivate rice land rather than to farm dry land. But when silkworm
+cultivation became prosperous they began to prefer dry land again in
+order that they might extend the area of mulberries. Therefore the
+landlords raised the rents of the dry farms. But there was one
+landlord who said, "If this dry farm land had been improved by me I
+should be justified in raising the rent. But I did not improve it.
+Therefore it would be base to take advantage of economic conditions to
+raise the rent."
+
+So he did not raise the rent. Then he was excluded from social
+intercourse by the other landlords because their tenants grumbled.
+These landlords said to him, "You can afford not to raise your rents,
+but we cannot." Therefore the landlord who had not raised his rents
+called his tenants together. He said to them, "It is a hard thing for
+me to have no social intercourse with my equals. Therefore I will now
+raise the rents. But I cannot accept that raised portion, and I will
+take care of it for you, and in ten years I think it will amount to
+enough for you to start a cooperative society."
+
+That was eight years ago and the formation of the society was now
+proceeding. In order that the reader may not forget on what a very
+different scale landlordism exists in Japan, I may mention that the
+area owned by this landlord was only 10 _chō_.
+
+I was told the story of a landlord's solution of the rent reduction
+problem. "Tenants," the narrator said, "sometimes pretend that their
+crops are poorer than they are. Landlords may reduce the payment due,
+but sometimes with a certain resentment. One landowner was asked for a
+reduction for several years in succession on account of poor crops,
+and gave it. But he was trying to think of a plan to defeat the
+pretences of his tenants. At last he hit on one. While the tenants'
+rice was young he often visited the fields, and when any insects were
+to be seen he sent his labourers secretly to destroy them. In the same
+way, when crops seemed to be under-manured, he secretly cast
+artificial manure on them. At last his tenants found out what he was
+doing, and they said, 'As our landlord is so kind to us, we must not
+pretend that we need a reduction.' And they did not, and things are
+going on very well there. This is an illustration of the fact that our
+people are moved more by feeling than by logic."
+
+This was capped by another story. "A landlord, a samurai, has for his
+tenants his former subjects, so something of the relation of master
+and servant still remains. He wished to raise his tenants to the
+position of peasant proprietors, so when land was for sale in the
+village he advised them to buy. They said they had no money, but he
+answered, 'Means may perhaps be found.' He secretly subscribed a sum
+to the Shinto shrine and then advised the formation of a co-operative
+society, which could borrow from the shrine for a tenant, so that the
+tenant need not go to the landlord to thank him and feel patronised by
+him. He need only to go to the shrine and give thanks there." "The
+landlord," added the speaker in his imperfect English, "has entirely
+hided himself from the business." A third of the tenants had become
+peasant proprietors.
+
+In order to better the feeling between the farmers and landowners this
+landlord and several others had begun to ask their tenants to their
+gardens, where they were given tea and fruit. "In Japan," said one man
+to me, "we see feudal ideas broken down by the upper, not the lower
+class."
+
+I visited the romantic coast of a peninsula a dozen miles from the
+railway. Some 10,000 pilgrims come in a year to the eighty-eight
+temples on the peninsula, and in some parts the people are such strict
+Buddhists that in one village the county authorities find great
+difficulty in overcoming an objection to destroying the insect life
+which preys on the rice crops. When rice land does not yield well, one
+landlord causes an investigation to be made and gives advice based
+upon it to the tenant, saying, "Do this, and if you lose I will
+compensate you. If you gain, the advantage will be yours." Money is
+also contributed by the landlord to enable tenants to make journeys in
+order to study farming methods.
+
+A landlord here--I had the pleasure of being his guest--had started an
+agricultural association. It had developed the idea of a secondary
+school for practical instruction, "rich men to give their money and
+poor men their labour." In order to obtain a fund to enable tenants to
+get money with which to set up as peasant proprietors, this landlord
+had thought of the plan of setting aside each harvest 250 _shō_[27] of
+rice to each tenant's 3 _shō_.
+
+Good work was done in teaching farmers' wives. "When no instruction is
+given," I was informed, "a wife may say, when her husband is testing
+his rice seed with salt water, 'Salt is very dear, nowadays, why not
+fresh water?' If a husband is kind he will explain. If not, some
+unpleasantness may arise, so wives are taught about the necessity of
+selecting by salt water."
+
+[Illustration: LANDOWNER'S SON AND DAUGHTER OFF TO THE VILLAGE
+SCHOOL.]
+
+[Illustration: BUDDHIST SHRINE IN A LANDOWNER'S HOUSE.]
+
+Tenants are advised to save a farthing a day. In order to keep them
+steadfast in their thriftiness they are asked to bring their savings
+to their landlord every ten days. It is troublesome to be
+constantly receiving so many small sums, but the landlord and his
+brother think that they should not grudge the trouble. In two years
+nearly 1,000 yen have been saved. Said one tenant to his landlord, "I
+know how to save now, therefore I save."
+
+[Illustration: MR. YAMASAKI, DR. NITOBE, THE AUTHOR AND PROFESSOR
+NASU.]
+
+[Illustration: THE HOME IN WHICH THE TEA CEREMONY TOOK PLACE.]
+
+One of my hosts, who was thirty-two, hoped to see all his tenants
+peasant proprietors before he was fifty. The relation of this landlord
+and his tenants was illustrated by the fact that on my arrival several
+farmers brought produce to the kitchen "because we heard that the
+landlord had guests." The village was very kind in its reception of
+the foreign visitor. A meeting was called in the temple. I told the
+story of Wren's _Si monumentum requiris circumspice_ and pointed a
+rural moral. Some months afterwards I received a request from my host
+to write a word or two of preface to go with a report of my address
+which he was giving to each of his tenants as a New Year gift.
+
+This landlord's family had lived in the same house for eleven
+generations. The courtesy of my host and his relatives and the beauty
+of their old house and its contents are an ineffaceable memory. From
+the time my party arrived until the time we left no servant was
+allowed to do anything for us. The ladies of the house cooked our food
+and the landlord and his younger brother brought it to us. The younger
+brother waited upon us throughout our meals, even peeling our pears.
+At night he spread our silk-covered _futon_ (mattresses). In the
+morning he folded them up, arranged my clothes, swept the room and
+stood at hand with towels, all of which were new, while I washed.
+
+When on our arrival in the house we sat and talked in the first
+reception-room we entered, I noticed that outside the lattice a
+company of villagers was listening with no consciousness of intrusion,
+in full view of our host, to the sound of foreign speech. It was a
+Shakespearean scene.
+
+Out of its setting, as it is often witnessed to-day, the tea ceremony
+seems meaningless and wearisome, an affected simplicity of the idle.
+But as a guest of this old house of fine timbers weathered to
+silver-grey I found the secret of _Cha-no-yu_. This flower of Far
+Eastern civilisation is an æsthetic expression of true
+good-fellowship, and a gentle simplicity and sincerity are of its
+essence. The admission of a foreigner to a family _Cha-no-yu_ was a
+gesture of confidence.
+
+Five of us gathered late in the afternoon of an August day in the cool
+matted rest-room in the garden. We looked on the beauty that
+generations of gardeners of a single vision had created. Our minds
+rested in the quiet as in the quaint phrase, we "tasted the sound of
+the kettle and listened to the incense." At length at a signal we
+rose. Led by the priestess of the ceremony, our host's aunt, a slight
+figure in grey with snow-white _tabi_ and new straw sandals, we passed
+by the dripping rocky fountain, with its lilies, and the azure
+hydrangea of the hills which, some say, suggests distance. The
+hut-like tea-room, traditionally rude in the material of which it was
+built but perfect in every detail of its workmanship, we entered one
+by one. According to old custom we humbly crept through the small
+opening which serves as entrance, the idea being that all worldly rank
+must bow at the sanctuary of beauty. The tiny chamber held, besides
+the wonderful vessels of the ceremony, a flower arrangement of blue
+Michaelmas daisies, and an exquisite scroll of wild duck in flight in
+the miniature _tokonoma_,[28] the tea mistress, our host and four
+guests. We drank from a black daimyo bowl which had been made four
+hundred years before. We passed an hour together and in the twilight
+we came out from the little room as from a sacrament of friendship. A
+year afterwards my host wrote to me, "Yesterday we had _Cha-no-yu_
+again and you were in our thoughts. During the ceremony we placed your
+photograph in the _tokonoma_."
+
+After dinner we had _kyōgen_[29] by distinguished amateurs, one of
+whom, a neighbouring landowner, had lately appeared before the
+Emperor. After the plays he painted _kyōgen_ scenes for us on
+_kakemono_ and fans. He painted the _kakemono_ as he knelt with his
+paper lying on a square of soft material on the floor.
+
+The plays were performed in ancient costumes or copies of old ones
+and of course without scenery. The players were lighted by oily
+candles two inches in diameter, which flamed and guttered in
+candlesticks not of this century nor of the last. A player may make
+his exit merely by sitting down. The players are men; masks are used
+in playing women's parts. The stories are of the simplest. There was
+the well-known tale of the sly servant who was sent to town by a
+stupid daimyo in order to buy a fan, and, though he brought back an
+umbrella, succeeded in imposing it on his master. There was also the
+play of the fox who comes to a farmer to advise him not to kill foxes,
+but is himself caught in a trap. I also recall a story of two good
+tenants who had been rewarded by their landlord with an order that
+they should receive hats. Owing to an oversight they received one hat
+only between the two. Problem, how to meet the difficulty. It was
+solved by the rustics fastening two pieces of wood together T-shape,
+raising the hat of honour upon the structure and walking home in
+triumph under either side of the T.
+
+The next morning I was greeted by the aged father and mother of our
+host. The household was an interesting one, for the landlord and his
+brother were married to two sisters. Before taking our departure we
+knelt with our landlord and his father before the Buddhist shrine on
+which rested the memorial tablets of former heads of the house. I
+expressed my sense of the privilege extended to strangers. The reply
+was, "Our ancestors will feel pleasure in your being among us."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[25] Samurai or _shizoku_ comprise about a twentieth of the
+population.
+
+[26] Every Japanese signs by means of a stone or hard-wood seal which
+he keeps in a case and ordinarily carries with him.
+
+[27] A _shō_ is about a quart and a half.
+
+[28] The raised recess in which is usually displayed the flower
+arrangement, a piece of pottery and a _kakemono_. (See Note, page 35.)
+
+[29] Farcical interludes of the _Nō_ stage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+COUNTRY-HOUSE LIFE
+
+The sense of a common humanity is a real political force.--J.R. GREEN
+
+
+The stranger in Japan sees so little of the intimacies of country life
+that I shall say something of further visits to what we should call
+county families. My hosts, who seemed to be active to a greater or
+less degree in promoting the welfare of their tenants, lived in purely
+Japanese style. Yet now and then in a beautiful house there was a
+showy gilt timepiece or some other thing of a deplorable Western
+fashion. At all the houses without exception we were waited upon by
+the host and his son, son-in-law or brother, and for some time after
+our arrival our host and the members of his family would kneel, not in
+the apartment in which our _zabuton_ (kneeling cushions) were
+arranged, but in the adjoining apartment with its screens pushed back.
+Even when the time of sweets and tea had passed and a regular meal was
+served, all the little tables of food were brought in not by servants
+but by the master of the house and such male relatives as were at
+home.
+
+When the duration of a Japanese meal is borne in mind, some idea may
+be gained of the fatigue endured by the head of a house in serving
+many guests. The host sometimes honours his guests still further by
+eating apart from them or by partaking of a portion only of the meal.
+The name of a feast in Japanese is significant, "a running about." The
+ladies of the house are usually seen for only a few minutes, when they
+come with the children to welcome the guests on their arrival; but on
+the second day of the visit the ladies may bring in food or tea or
+play the _koto_.
+
+The foreigner, though on his knees, feels a little at a loss to know
+how to acknowledge politely the repeated bows of so many kneeling men
+and women. He watches with appreciation the perfect response of his
+Japanese travelling companions. It is difficult to convey a sense of
+the charm and dignity of old courtesies exchanged with sincerity
+between well-bred people in a fine old house. Although all the
+_shoji_[30] are open, the trees of the beautiful garden cast a pensive
+shade. The ancient ceremonial of welcome and introduction would seem
+ludicrous in the full light of a Western drawing-room, but in the
+perfectly subdued light of these romantically beautiful apartments,
+charged with some strange and melancholy emotion, the visitor from the
+West feels himself entering upon the rare experience of a new world.
+
+Everyone knows how few are the treasures that a Japanese displays in
+his house. His heirlooms and works of art are stored in a fireproof
+annexe. For the feasting of the eye of every guest or party of
+visitors the appropriate choice of _kakemono_,[31] carving or pottery
+is made. I had the delight of seeing during my country-house visiting
+many ancient pictures of country life and of animals and birds. It was
+also a precious opportunity to inspect armour and wonderful swords and
+stands of arrows in the houses in which the men who had worn the
+armour and used the weapons had lived. The way of stringing the
+seven-feet-high bow was shown to me by a kimono-clad samurai, as has
+been recorded in the previous chapter. When he threw himself into a
+warlike attitude and with an ancient cry whirled a gleaming two-handed
+sword in the dim light thrown by lanterns which had lighted the house
+in the time of the Shoguns, the figures on old-time Japanese prints
+had a new vividness.
+
+What also helped in illuminating for me the old prints of warlike
+scenes was a display of a remarkable kind of fencing with naked
+weapons which one of my hosts kindly provided in his garden one
+evening. The tournament was conducted by the village young men's
+association. The exercises, which, as I saw them, are peculiar to the
+district, are called _ki-ai_, which means literally "spirit meeting."
+They call not only for long training but for courage and ardour. The
+combats took place on a small patch of grass which was fenced by four
+bamboo branches. These were connected by a rope of paper streamers
+such as are used to distinguish a consecrated place. Before the first
+bout the bamboos and rope were taken away and a handful of salt was
+thrown on the grass. Salt was similarly thrown on the grass before
+every contest. The idea is that salt is a purifier. It signifies, like
+the handshake of our boxers, that the feelings of the combatants are
+cleansed from malice.
+
+Most of the events were single combats, but there were two meetings in
+which a man confronted a couple of assailants. The contests I recall
+were spear _v_. spear, spear _v_. sword, sword _v_. long billhook,
+spear _v_. the short Japanese sickle and a chain, spear _v_. paper
+umbrella and sword, pole _v_. wooden sword, pole _v_. pole, and long
+billhook _v_. fan and sword. The weapons were sharp enough to inflict
+serious wounds if a false move should be made or there should be a
+momentary lack of self-control. The flashing steel gave an impression
+of imminent danger. There was also the feeling aroused in the
+spectators by the way in which the combatants sought to gain advantage
+over one another by fierce snarls, stamping on the ground and
+appalling gestures. The neck veins of the fighters swelled and their
+faces flamed with mock defiance. Their agility in escaping descending
+blades was amazing. But the _ki-ai_ player's dexterity is famous. It
+is his boast that with his sword he could cut a straw on a friend's
+head. I noticed that no women were present at the "spirit meeting."
+
+More than once I found that my landlord host was accustomed to make a
+circuit of his village once or twice a week in order to see how things
+were going with his tenants. Public-spirited landlords were working
+for their people by means of co-operation, lectures and prizes, the
+distribution of leaflets and the giving of from 2-1/2 to 7-1/2 per
+cent. discount in rent when good rice was produced. The rural
+philanthropist in Japan sees himself as the father of his village.[32]
+The Japanese word for landlord is "land master" and for tenant "son
+tiller." The old idea was patronage on the one side and respect on the
+other. This idea is disappearing. "We wish," said one landlord to me,
+"to pass through the transition stage gradually. We do not feel the
+same responsibility to our people, perhaps, now that they do not show
+the same reverence for us, but we do not say to them that they may go
+to the factory and we will invest our money for our children. We check
+ourselves. We know well, however, that things will change in our
+grandsons' time. We therefore try to mix our grandfathers' ideas and
+modern ideas. We are believers in co-operation and we try to be
+counsellors and to work behind the curtain."
+
+From time to time there are such things as tenants' strikes. Mr.
+Yamasaki assured me that the problem of the rural districts can be
+solved only by appealing to the feelings of the people in the right
+way. He said that "the Japanese are largely moved by feelings, not by
+convictions." In some coastwise counties, someone told me, a hurricane
+destroyed the crops to such an extent that the tenants could not pay
+rent, and the landlords who depended on their rents were impoverished.
+Things reached such a pass that a hundred thousand peasants signed a
+paper swearing fidelity to an anti-landlord propaganda. Officials and
+lawyers achieved nothing. Then Mr. Yamasaki went, and, sitting in the
+local temple, talked things over with both sides for days. He got the
+landlords to say that they were sorry for their tenants and the
+tenants to say that they were sorry for the landlords, and eventually
+he was allowed to burn the oath-attested document in the temple.[33]
+
+Many landlords are "endeavouring to cultivate a moral relation"
+between themselves and their tenants. They have often the advantage
+that their ancestors were the landlords of the same peasant families
+for many generations. But there are still plenty of absentee landlords
+and landlords who are usurers. There are also the landlords who have
+let their lands to middlemen. The cultivator therefore pays out of all
+proportion to what the landlord receives. Of landlords generally, an
+ex-daimyo's son said to me: "Many landlords treat their tenants
+cruelly. The rent enforced is too high. In place of the intimate
+relations of former days the relations are now that of cat and dog.
+The ignorance of the landlords is the cause of this state of things.
+It is very important that the landlord's son shall go to the
+agricultural school, where there is plenty of practical work which
+will bring the perspiration from him." The object of most good
+landlords is to increase the income of their tenants. It is felt that
+unless the farmers have more money in their hands, progress is
+impossible. There is one direction in which the landlords are not
+tried. The franchise is so narrow that farmers cannot vote against
+their landlords.
+
+In the house of one old landowning family in which I was a guest I saw
+a _gaku_ inscribed, "Happiness comes to the house whose ancestors were
+virtuous." I was admitted to the family shrine. Round the walls of the
+small apartment in which the shrine stood were the autographs or
+portraits of distinguished members of the house going back four or
+five hundred years. It was easy to see that the inspiring force of
+this family was its untarnished name. It was a crime against the
+ancestors to reduce the prestige or merit of the family. No stronger
+influence could be exerted upon an erring member of such a family than
+to be brought by his father or elder brother before the family shrine
+and there reprimanded in the presence of the ancestral spirits. The
+head of this house is at present a schoolboy of twelve and the
+government of the family is in the hands of a "regent," the lad's
+uncle. I saw the boy and his younger sister trot off in the morning
+with their satchels on their backs to the village school in democratic
+Japanese fashion. Japan is a much more democratic country than the
+tourist imagines. Distinctions of class are accompanied by easy
+relations in many important matters.
+
+I went for a second time to the restful city of Nagoya. It is out of
+the sphere of influence of Tokyo and is conservative of old ideas.
+People live with less display than in the capital and perhaps pride
+themselves on doing so. But if the houses of even the well-to-do are
+small and inconspicuous, the interiors are of satisfying quality in
+materials and workmanship, and the family godowns bring forth
+surprises. Here as elsewhere the guest is served in treasured lacquer
+and porcelain. (While we are not accustomed in the West to look at the
+marks on our host's table silver, it is perfect Japanese manners to
+admire a food bowl by examining the potter's marks.) My host hung a
+rural _kakemono_ in my room, one day a fine old study of poultry,
+another an equally beautiful painting of hollyhocks.
+
+As we left the town my attention was attracted by a commemorative
+stone overlooking rice fields. The inscription proclaimed the fact
+that at that spot the late Emperor Meiji,[34] as a lad of fifteen, on
+his historic first journey to Tokyo, "beheld the farmers reaping."
+
+The matron of a farmhouse two centuries old showed me a tub containing
+tiny carp which she had hatched for her carp pond, the inmates of
+which, as is common, came to be fed when she clapped her hands. In the
+garden there was an old clay butt still used for archery. In the
+farmhouse I was taken into a room in which in the old days the daimyo
+overlord had rested, into another room which had a secret door and
+into a third room where--an electric fan was buzzing.
+
+At a school I had to face the usual ordeal of having to "write" as
+best I could a motto for use as a wall picture. Our lettering, when
+done with a brush, falls pitifully behind Chinese characters in
+decorative value, and our mottoes will not readily translate into
+Japanese. I was often grateful to Henley for "I am the master of my
+fate, I am the captain of my soul," because with the substitution of
+"commander" for captain, the lines translate literally.
+
+We left the village through arches which had been erected by the young
+men's association. At an old country house four interesting things
+were shown to me. There was, first, a phial of rice seed 230 years
+old. The agricultural professor who was my fellow-guest told me that
+he had germinated some of the grains, but they did not produce rice
+plants. The second thing was a fine family shrine before which a
+religious ceremony had been performed twice a day by succeeding
+generations of the same family for 350 years. The third object of
+interest was a little, narrow, flat steel dagger about eight inches
+long, sheathed in the scabbard of a sword. The dagger was used for
+"fastening an enemy's head on." After the owner of the sword had
+beheaded his foe, he drew the smaller weapon, and, thrusting one end
+into the headless trunk and the other end into the base of the head,
+politely united head and body once more, thus making it possible "to
+show due respect and sympathy towards the dead." Finally, I had the
+privilege of handling a wonderful suit of armour which was fitted
+slowly together for me out of many pieces. Although it had been made
+several centuries ago, this rich suit of lacquered leather had been a
+Japanese general's wear on the field of battle within living memory.
+
+One of the landowners I met was a poet who had been successful in the
+Imperial poem competition which is held every New Year. A subject is
+set by His Majesty and the thousands of pieces sent in are submitted
+to a committee. The dozen best productions are read before the
+sovereign himself, and this is the honour sought by the competitors.
+The subject for competition in the year in which the landowner had
+been successful was, "The cryptomeria in a temple court." His poem was
+as follows:
+
+        In transplanting
+        The young cryptomeria trees
+        Within the sacred fence
+        There is a symbol
+        Of the beginning of the reign.
+
+The New Year poems come from every class of the community and there
+is seldom a year in which landowners or farmers are not among the
+fortunate twelve.
+
+As we rode along a companion spoke of the force of public opinion in
+keeping things straight in the countryside, also of the far-reaching
+control exercised by fathers and elder brothers. But the good
+behaviour of some people was due, he said, to a dread of being
+ridiculed in the newspapers, which allow themselves extraordinary
+freedom in dealing with reputations.
+
+I met a man who had had a monument erected to him. He was a member of
+a little company which received me in a farmer's house. He was
+formerly the richest man in the village, that is to say, he owned 20
+_chō_ and was worth about 100,000 yen. Moved by the poverty of his
+neighbours, he devoted his substance to improving their condition. Now
+many of them are well off, the village has been "praised and rewarded"
+by the prefecture for its "good farming and good morals," and the
+philanthropist is worth only 50,000 yen. Impressed by his
+unselfishness, the village has raised a great slab of stone in his
+honour.
+
+I made enquiries continually about the influence exerted by priests. I
+was told of many "careless" priests, but also of others who delivered
+sermons of a practical sort. A few of the younger priests were
+described as "philosophical" and some preached "the kingdom of God is
+within you." Many people laid stress on the necessity for a better
+education of the priesthood and for combating superstition among the
+peasantry, though the schools had already had a powerful influence in
+shaking the faith of thousands of the common people in charms and
+suchlike. Many folk put up charms because it was the custom or to
+please their old parents or because it could do no harm.
+
+I was told that the Government does not encourage the erection of new
+temples. Its notion is that it is better to maintain the existing
+temples adequately. When I went to see a gorgeous new temple, I found
+that official permission for its erection had been obtained because
+the figures, vessels and some of the fittings of an old and
+dilapidated temple were to be used in the new edifice. This temple
+was on a large tract of land which had recently been recovered from
+the sea. The building had cost between 80,000 and 90,000 yen. It stood
+on piles on rising ground and had a secondary purpose in that it
+offered a place of refuge to the settlers on the new land if the sea
+dike should break.
+
+The founder of the temple was the man who had drained the land and
+established the colony. He had given an endowment of 500 yen a year,
+three-quarters of which was for the priest. This functionary had also
+an income of 150 yen from a _chō_ of land attached to the temple.
+Further he received gifts of rice and vegetables. I noticed that the
+gifts of rice--acknowledged on a list hung up in his house--varied in
+quantity from four pecks to half a cupful. Probably the priest bought
+very little of anything. If he needed matting for his house, which was
+attached to the temple, or if he had to make a journey, the villagers
+saw that his requirements were met. And he was always getting presents
+of one kind or another. "A man says to the priest," I was told, "'This
+is too good for me; please accept it.'" The villagers on their side
+sat and smoked in one of the temple rooms and drank his reverence's
+tea for hours before and after service.[35]
+
+The building of the temple was not only an act of piety but a work of
+commercial necessity. The colonists on the reclaimed land would never
+have settled there if there had not been a temple to hold them to the
+place and to provide burial rites for their old parents. Not all the
+people were of the same sect of Buddhism, but "they gradually came
+together." A third of what a tenant produced went for rent and another
+third for fertilisers, the remaining third being his own. The
+population was 1,800 in 300 families. The average area per family was
+2 _chō_ and colonists were expected to start with about 200 yen of
+capital. Some unpromising tenants had been sent away and "some had
+left secretly." Half of the people were in debt to the landlord--the
+total indebtedness was about 15,000 yen--for the erection of houses
+and the purchase of implements and stock. The rate was 8 per cent. In
+the district 10 per cent. was quite usual and 12 per cent. by no means
+rare. The co-operative society lent at the daily rate of 2-1/2 sen per
+100 yen.
+
+The landlord told me that the sea dikes took two years to build and
+that most of the earth was carried by women, 5,000 of them. Their
+labour was cheap and the small quantities of earth which each woman
+brought at a time permitted of a better consolidation of an embankment
+that was 240 feet wide at the base. More than a million yen were laid
+out on the work. The reclaimed land was free of State taxes for half a
+century, but the landlord made a voluntary gift to the village of
+2,000 yen a year. The yearly rent coming in was already nearly 56,000
+yen. The cost of the management of the drained land and of repairs to
+the embankment, 20,000 yen a year, was just met by the profits of a
+fishpond. A valuable edible seaweed industry was carried on outside
+the sea dikes. The landlord mentioned that he had had great difficulty
+in overcoming the objections of his grandfather to the investment, but
+that eventually the old man got so much interested that at
+ninety-three he used to march about giving orders.
+
+One day in the course of my journeying I was near a railway station
+where country people had assembled to watch the passing of a train by
+which the Emperor was travelling. No one was permitted along the line
+except at specified points which were carefully watched. A young
+constable who wore a Russian war medal was opposite the spot where I
+stood. He politely asked me to keep one _shaku_ (foot) or so away from
+the paling. When someone's child pushed itself half-way through the
+paling the police instruction was, "Please keep back the little one
+for, if it should pass through, other children will no doubt wish to
+follow." A later request by the constable was to take off our hats and
+keep silence when he raised his hand on the approach of the Imperial
+train. We were further asked not to point at the Emperor and on no
+account to cry Banzai. (The Japanese shout _Banzai_ for the Emperor in
+his absence and cry _Banzai_ to victorious generals and admirals, but
+perfect silence is considered the most respectful way of greeting the
+Emperor himself.) The Imperial train, which was preceded by a pilot
+engine drawing a van full of rather anxious-looking police, slowed
+down on approaching the station so that everyone had a chance of
+seeing the Emperor, who was facing us. All the school children of the
+district had been marshalled where they could get a good view. The
+Japanese bow of greatest respect--it has been introduced since the
+Restoration, I was told--is an inclination of the head so slight that
+it does not prevent the person who bows seeing his superior. This bow
+when made by rows of people is impressive. Undoubtedly the crowd was
+moved by the sight of its sovereign. Not a few people held their hands
+together in front of them in an attitude of devotion. The day before I
+had happened to see first a priest and then a professor examining a
+magazine which had a portrait of the Emperor as frontispiece. Both
+bowed slightly to the print. Coloured portraits of the Emperor and
+Empress are on sale in the shops, but in many cases there is a little
+square of tissue paper over the Imperial countenances.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[30] _Shoji_ are the screens which divide a room from the outside.
+They are a dainty wooden framework of many divisions, each of which is
+covered by a sheet of thin white paper. The _shoji_ provide light and
+are never painted. The sliding doors between two rooms are _karakami
+(fusuma_ is a literary word). They are a wooden framework with thick
+paper or cloth on both sides of it and with paper packing between the
+layers. _Karakami_ are often decorated with writing or may be painted.
+No light passes through them.
+
+[31] A writing or a picture on a long perpendicular strip of paper or
+silk or of paper mounted on silk, with rollers. The length is about
+three times the width, which is usually 1 ft. 3 in. or 1 ft. 10 in.
+The _kakemono_ in the _tokonoma_ of tea-ceremony rooms is about 10 in.
+wide.
+
+[32] For budgets of large property owners, see Appendix III.
+
+[33] There have been several serious tenants' demonstrations in Aichi
+during 1921. See Chapter XIX.
+
+[34] Each Emperor receives on his succession a name which is applied
+to the period of his reign. The period of Mutsuhito's reign,
+1868-1912, is called _Meiji_; that of the present Emperor _Taisho_.
+Thus the year 1912 would be _Taisho_ I.
+
+[35] It will be remembered that there is only one prefecture in which
+tea is not grown in larger or smaller areas, and that it is served
+economically without sugar or milk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+BEFORE OKUNITAMA-NO-MIKO-NO-KAMI[36]
+
+Nor do I see why we should take it for granted that their gods are
+unworthy of respect.--_Valerius_
+
+
+In Aichi prefecture I was asked to plant trees (persimmons) in the
+grounds of three temples or shrines and on the land of several
+farmers. In an exposed position on a hill-top I found persimmons being
+grown on a system under which the landlord provided the land, trees
+and manures and the farmer the labour, and the produce was equally
+divided.
+
+The cryptomeria at one of the shrines I visited were of great age. All
+of them had lost their tops by lightning. It cannot be easy for those
+who have never seen cryptomeria or the redwoods of California to
+realise the impression made by dark giant trees that have stood before
+some shrine for generations. At the approach to the shrine of which I
+speak there were venerable wooden statues. I recall one figure carved
+in wood as full of life as that of the famous Egyptian headman.
+
+The aged chief priest, who was assisted by two younger priests, kindly
+invited me to take part in a Shinto service. First, I ceremonially
+washed my hands and rinsed my mouth. Then, having ascended the steps,
+my shoes were removed for me so that my hands should not be defiled.
+On entering the shrine I knelt opposite the young priests, one of whom
+brought me the usual evergreen bough with paper streamers. On
+receiving it I rose to my feet, passed through the beautiful building
+and advanced to what I may call, for the lack of a more accurate term,
+the altar table. On this table, which, as is usual in Shinto
+ceremonies, was of new white wood following the ancient design, I laid
+the offering. Then I bowed and gave the customary three smart
+hand-claps which summon the attention of the deity of the shrine, and
+bowed again. On returning to my former kneeling-place one of the
+priests offered me _saké_ and a small piece of dried fish in
+paper.[37] The chief priest was good enough to read and to hand to me
+an address headed, "Words of Congratulation to the Investigator,"
+which may be Englished as follows:
+
+"I, Yukimichi Otsu, the chief priest, speak most respectfully and
+reverently before the shrine of the august deity,
+Okunitama-no-miko-no-kami, and other deities here enshrined: Dr.
+Robertson Scott, of England, is here this good day. He comes to see
+the things of Japan under the governance of our gracious Emperor. I,
+having made myself quite pure and clean, open the door of gracious
+eyes that they may look upon those who are here. May Dr. Robertson
+Scott be protected during night and day, no accident happening
+wherever he may go. Dr. Robertson Scott goes everywhere in this
+country; he may cross a hundred rivers and pass over many hills. May
+there be no foundering of his boat, no stumbling of his horse.
+Offering produce of land and sea, I say this most respectfully before
+the shrine."
+
+After the shrine I visited a co-operative store, curiously reminiscent
+of many a similar rural enterprise I had seen in Denmark. Sugar,
+coarser than anything sold at home, was dear. Half the price paid for
+sugar in Japan is tax. I was informed that there were no fewer than
+400 cooperative organisations in the prefecture.
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR QUESTIONING OFFICIALS--]
+
+[Illustration: AND PLANTING COMMEMORATIVE TREES]
+
+At several places, although the villagers were busy rice planting, the
+young men's association turned out. The young men were reinforced by
+reservists and came sharply to attention as our _kuruma_
+(_jinrikisha_, usually pneumatic-tyred) passed. Some of the villages
+we bowled through were off the ordinary track, and the older villagers
+observed the ancient custom of coming out from their houses or farm
+plots, dropping on their knees and bowing low as we passed.[38] All
+over Japan, a villager encountered on the road removed the towel from
+his head before bowing. If a cloak or outer coat was worn, it was
+taken off or the motion of taking it off was made. Frequently, in
+showery weather, cyclists who were wearing mackintoshes or capes,
+alighted and removed these outer garments before saluting.
+
+[Illustration: RICE POLISHING BY FOOT POWER.]
+
+I saw a village which a few years ago had been "disorderly and poor"
+and in continual friction with its landlord. Eventually this man
+realised his responsibility, and, inspired by Mr. Yamasaki, took the
+situation in hand. He talked in a straightforward way with his
+villagers, reduced a number of rents and spent money freely in
+ameliorative work. To-day the village is "remarkable for its good
+conduct" and the relation between landlord and tenant seems to be
+everything that can be desired. The landlord is not only the moving
+spirit of the co-operative store but has started a school for girls of
+from fifteen to twenty. They bring their own food but the schooling is
+free.
+
+On the gables of one or two houses near the roof I noticed ventilators
+which were cut in the form of the Chinese ideograph which means water,
+a kind of charm against fire. At the door of one rather well-to-do
+peasant house I saw several paper charms against toothache. There was
+also an inscription intimating that the householder was a director of
+the co-operative society and another announcing that he was an expert
+in the application of the moxa.[39] Every house I went into had a
+collection of charms. One charm, a verse of poetry hung upside-down,
+as is the custom, was against ants. Another was understood to ensure
+the safe return of a straying cat.
+
+In one house in the village my attention was drawn to the fact that
+the rice pot contained a large percentage of barley.
+
+In two or three places I passed pits for the excavation of lignite,
+which does not look unlike the wood taken out of bogs. A pit I stopped
+at was twenty-two fathoms deep. There were twenty miners at work and
+air was being pumped down.
+
+One of the things we in the West might imitate with advantage is the
+village crematorium. In Japan it is of the simplest construction. The
+rate for villagers was 50 sen, that for outsiders 2 yen. No doubt
+there would be an additional yen for the priest. In a little building
+which was thirty years old 200 bodies had been cremated.
+
+I looked into a small co-operative rice storehouse. The building was
+provided by a number of members "swearing" to save at the rate of a
+yen and a half a month each until the funds needed had accumulated.
+The money was obtained by extra labour in the evening. Just before I
+left Japan the Department of Agriculture was arranging to spend 2
+million yen within a ten-years' period to encourage the building of
+4,000 rice storehouses.
+
+As I watched the water pouring from one rice field to another and
+wondered how the rights of landowners were ever reconciled, someone
+reminded me of the phrase, "water splashing quarrels," that is
+disputes in which each side blames the other without getting any
+farther forward. To take an unfair advantage in controversy is to draw
+water into one's own paddy. The equivalent for "pouring water on a
+duck's back" is "flinging water in a frog's face." A Western European
+is always astonished in Japan by the lung power of Far Eastern frogs.
+The noise is not unlike the bleating of lambs.
+
+Every now and again one comes on a fragrant bed of lotus in its paddy
+field. It seems odd at first that lotus--and burdock--should be
+cultivated for food. As a pickle burdock is eatable, but lotus and
+some unfamiliar tuberous plants are pleasant food resembling in
+flavour boiled chestnuts. _Konnyaku_ (_hydrosme rivieri_), a near
+relative of the arum lily, is produced to the weight of 11 million
+_kwan_--a _kwan_ is roughly 8-1/4 lbs.[40] The yield of burdock is
+about 44 million _kwan_. The chief of all vegetables is the giant
+radish, of which 7-1/4 million _kwan_ are grown. Taro yields about 150
+million _kwan_. Foreigners usually like the young sprouts taken from
+the roots of the bamboo, a favourite Japanese vegetable.
+
+This is as convenient a place as any to speak of an important
+agricultural fact, the enormous amount of filth worked into the
+paddies. As is well known, hardly any of the night soil of Japan is
+wasted. Japanese agriculture depends upon it. Formerly the night soil
+was removed from the houses after being emptied into a pair of tubs
+which the peasant carried from a yoke. Such yoke-carried tubs are
+still seen, but are chiefly employed in carrying the substance to the
+paddies. The tubs which are taken to dwellings are now mostly borne on
+light two-wheeled handcarts which carry sometimes four and sometimes
+six. A farmer will push or pull his manure cart from a town ten or
+twelve miles off. It is difficult to leave or enter a town without
+meeting strings of manure carts. The men who haul the carts get
+together for company on their tedious journey. They seem insensible to
+the concentrated odour. Often the wife or son or daughter may be seen
+pushing behind a cart. There is a certain amount of transportation by
+horse-drawn frame carts, carrying a dozen or sixteen tubs, and by
+boats. I was told of a city of half a million inhabitants which had
+thirty per cent. of its night soil taken ten miles away. The work was
+undertaken by a co-operative society which paid the municipality the
+large sum of 70,000 yen a year. The removal of night soil, its storage
+in the fields in sunken butts and concrete cisterns--carefully
+protected by thatched, wooden or concrete roofs--and its constant
+application to paddy fields or upland plots cause an odour to prevail
+which the visitor to Japan never forgets.[41]
+
+It must not be supposed that, because the Japanese are careful to
+utilise human waste products, no other manure is employed. There is an
+enormous consumption of chemical fertilisers. Then there are brought
+into service all sorts of crop-feeding materials, such as straw,
+grass, compost, silkworm waste, fish waste, and of course the manure
+produced by such stock as is kept.[42] In Aichi the value of human
+waste products used on the land is only a quarter of the value of the
+bean cake and fish waste similarly employed.
+
+At Mr. Yamasaki's excellent agricultural school (prefectural), which
+I visited more than once,[43] I was struck by the grave bearing of the
+students. I saw them not only in their classrooms but in their large
+hall, where I was invited to speak from a platform between the busts
+of two rural worthies, Ninomiya, of whom we have heard before, and
+another who was "distinguished by the righteousness of his public
+career." As in the Danish rural high schools, store is set on hard
+physical exercise. An hour of exercise--_judō_ (jujitsu), sword play
+or military drill--is taken from six to seven in the morning and
+another at midday with the object of "strengthening the spirit" and
+"developing the character," for "our farmers must not only be honest
+and determined but courageous." Severe physical labour, shared by the
+teacher, is also given out of doors, for example, in heaping manure.
+"We believe," said one of the instructors, "in moral virtue taught by
+the hands."
+
+For an hour a day "the main points of moral virtue" are put before the
+different grades of students, according to their ages and development.
+The school has a guild to which the twenty teachers and all the
+students belong. It is a kind of co-operative society for the
+"purchase and distribution of daily necessities," but one of its
+objects is "the maintenance of public morality." Then there is the
+students' association which has literary and gymnastic sides, the one
+side "to refine wisdom and virtue," the other "for the rousing of
+spirit." Mention may also be made of a "discipline calendar" of fixed
+memorial days and ceremonies "that all the students should observe":
+the ceremony of reading the Imperial Rescript on education, thrift and
+morality, and the ceremonies at the end of rice planting, at harvest
+and at the maturity of the silk-worm. The fitting-up of the school is
+Spartan but the rooms are high and well lighted and ventilated. The
+students' hot bath accommodates a dozen lads at a time. The studies
+are also the dormitories, and in the corner of each there is stored a
+big mosquito netting. Except for a few square yards near the doors,
+these rooms consist of the usual raised platform covered with the
+national _tatami_ or matting.
+
+I heard a characteristic story of the Director. During the
+Russo-Japanese war everybody was economising, and many people who had
+been in the habit of riding in _kuruma_ began to walk. Our
+agricultural celebrity had always had a passion for walking, so it was
+out of his power to economise in _kuruma_. What he did was to cease
+walking and take to _kuruma_ riding, for, he said, "in war time one
+must work one's utmost, and if I move about quickly I can get more
+done."
+
+I may add a story which this rare man himself told me. I had seen in
+his house a photograph of a memorial slab celebrating the heroic death
+of a peasant. It appeared that in a period of scarcity there was left
+in this peasant's village only one unbroken bale of rice. This rice
+was in the possession of the peasant, who was suffering from lack of
+food. But he would not cook any of the rice because he knew that if he
+did the village would be without seed in spring. Eventually the brave
+man was found dead of hunger in his cottage. His pillow had been the
+unopened bale of rice.
+
+In the house of a small peasant proprietor I visited the inscriptions
+on the two _gaku_ signified "Buddha's teaching broken by a beautiful
+face" and "Cast your eyes on high." On the wall there was also a copy
+of a resolution concerning a recent Imperial Rescript which 500 rural
+householders, at a meeting in the county, had "sworn to observe," and,
+as I understood, to read two or three times a year.
+
+Japan, as I have already noted, has always been a more democratic
+country than is generally understood; but the people have been
+accustomed to act under leaders. Some time ago an official of the
+Department of Agriculture visited a certain district in order to speak
+at the local temple in advocacy of the adjustment of rice fields. (See
+Chapter VIII.) A dignitary corresponding to the chairman of an English
+county council was at the temple to receive the official, but at the
+time appointed for the meeting to begin the audience consisted of one
+old man. Although the official from Tokyo and the _gunchō_ (head of a
+county) waited for some time, no one else put in an appearance. So
+they asked the old man the reason. He replied by asking them the
+object of the meeting. They told him. He said that he had so
+understood and that the community had so understood, but the farmers
+were very busy men. Therefore, as he was the oldest man in the
+district, they had sent him as their representative. Their
+instructions were that he would be able to tell from his experience of
+the district whether what the authorities proposed would be a good
+thing for it or not. If he considered it to be a bad thing they would
+not do it, but if he thought it to be a good thing they would do it.
+He was to hear all that was said and then to give a decision on the
+community's behalf to the officials who might attend. "So," said the
+old man to the Tokyo official and the _gunchō_, "if you convince me
+you have convinced the village." And after two hours' explanation they
+convinced him!
+
+There are in Japan hydraulic engineering works as remarkable in their
+way as any I have seen in the Netherlands. Some of these works, for
+example the tunnels for conducting rice-field water through
+considerable hills, have been the work of unlettered peasants. In one
+place I found that 80 miles or more of irrigation was based on a canal
+made two centuries ago. It is good to see so many embankings of
+refractory streams and excavations of river beds commemorated by slabs
+recording the public services of the men who, often at their own
+charges, carried out these works of general utility.
+
+In various parts of the country I came upon smallholders who had
+reached a high degree of proficiency in the fine art of dwarfing
+trees. One day I stopped to speak with a farmer who by this art had
+added 1,000 yen a year to his agricultural income. A thirty-years-old
+maple was one of his triumphs. Another was a pomegranate about a foot
+and a half high. It was in flower and would bear fruit of ordinary
+size. The wonder of dwarfing is wrought, as is now well known, by
+cramping the roots in the pot and by extremely skilful pruning,
+manuring and watering. While we drank tea some choice specimens were
+displayed before a screen of unrelieved gold. In the room in which we
+sat the farmer had arranged in a bowl of water with great
+effectiveness hydrangea, a spray of pomegranate and a cabbage.
+
+One marks the respect shown to the rural policeman. In his summer
+uniform of white cotton, with his flat white cap and white gloves, and
+an imposing sword, he looks like a naval officer, even if, as
+sometimes happens, his feet are in _zori_. He gets respect because of
+his dignified presence and sense of official duty, because of the
+considerable powers which he is able to exercise, because he stands
+for the Government, and because he is sometimes of a higher social
+grade than that to which policemen belong in other countries. At the
+Restoration many men of the samurai class did not think it beneath
+them to enter the new sword-wearing police force and they helped to
+give it a standing which has been maintained. As to the policeman
+being a representative of the Government, the ordinary Japanese has a
+way of speaking of the Government doing this or that as if the
+Government were irresistible power. Average Japanese do not yet
+conceive the Government as something which they have made and may
+unmake[44]. But is it likely that they should, parliamentary history,
+the work of their betters, being as short as it is? It is not whithout
+significance that the Chambers of the Diet are housed in temporary
+wooden buildings.
+
+The rural policeman is not only a paternal guardian of the peace but
+an administrative official. He keeps an eye on public health. He is
+charged with correctly maintaining the record of names and
+addresses--and some other particulars--of everybody in the village. It
+is his duty to secure correct information as to the name, age, place
+of origin and real business of every stranger. He attends all public
+meetings, even of the young men's and young women's associations, and
+no strolling players can give their entertainment without his
+presence. As to the movements of strangers, my own were obviously well
+known. Indeed a friend told me that in the event of my losing myself I
+had only to ask a policeman and he would be able to tell me where I
+was expected next! At the houses of well-to-do people I was struck by
+the way in which the local police officer--sometimes, no doubt, a
+sergeant or perhaps a man of the rank of our superintendent or chief
+constable--called with the headman and joined our kneeling circle in
+the reception-room. Nominally he came to pay his respects, but his
+chief object, no doubt, was to take stock of what was going on. I
+invariably took the opportunity of closely interviewing him.
+
+The extraordinary degree to which Japanese are commonly accustomed in
+their differences of opinion to refrain from blows makes many of their
+quarrels harmless. The threat to send for the policeman or the actual
+appearance of the policeman has an almost magical effect in calming a
+disturbance. The Japanese policeman believes very much in reproving or
+reprimanding evil doers and in reasoning with folk whose
+"carelessness" has attracted attention. Sometimes for greater
+impressiveness the admonitions or exhortations are delivered at the
+police station[45]. In more than one village I heard a tribute paid to
+the good influence exerted on a community by a devoted policeman.
+
+The chief of an agricultural experiment station also seems to obtain a
+large measure of respect, to some extent, no doubt, because he
+occupies a public office. The regard felt for Mr. Yamasaki goes
+deeper. A few years ago he was sent on a mission abroad and in his
+absence his local admirers cast about for a way of showing their
+appreciation of his work. They began by raising what was described to
+me as "naturally not a large but an honourable sum." With this money
+they decided to add three rooms to his dwelling. They had noted how
+visitors were always coming to his house in order to profit by his
+experience and advice. Mr. Yamasaki uses the rooms primarily as "an
+hotel for people of good intentions--those who work for better
+conditions." I was proud to stay at this "hotel" and to receive as a
+parting gift an old _seppuku_ blade.
+
+Which reminds me that one night at a house in the country I found
+myself sitting under photographs of the late General and Countess Nogi
+and of the gaunt bloodstained room of the depressing "foreign style"
+house in which they committed suicide on the day of the funeral of
+the Emperor Meiji[46]. One of my fellow-guests was a professor at the
+Imperial University; the other was a teacher of lofty and unselfish
+spirit. They were both samurai. I mentioned that a man of worth and
+distinction has said to me that, while he recognised the nobility of
+Nogi's action, he could but not think it unjustifiable. I was at once
+told that Japanese who do not approve of Nogi's action "must be
+over-influenced by Western thought." "Those who are quintessentially
+Japanese," it was explained, "think that Nogi did right. Bodily death
+is nothing, for Nogi still lives among us as a spirit. He labours with
+a stronger influence. Many hearts were purified by his sacrifice. One
+of Nogi's reasons for suicide was no doubt that he might be able to
+follow his beloved Emperor, but his intention was also to warn many
+vicious or unpatriotic people. Some politicians and rich people say
+they are patriotic, but they are animated by selfish motives and
+desires. Nogi's suicide was due to his loving his fellow-countrymen
+sincerely. Surely he was acting after the manner of Christ. Nogi
+crucified himself for the people in order to atone in a measure for
+their sins and to lead them to a better way of life."
+
+I heard from my friends something of Nogi's demeanour. The old general
+was a familiar figure in Tokyo. In the street cars--those were the
+days when they were not over-crowded--he was always seen standing. His
+admirers used to say that his face "beamed with beneficence." But
+Nogi, though he loved to be within reach of the Emperor and did his
+part as head of the Peers' School, liked nothing better than to get
+away to the country. He was originally a peasant and he still
+possessed a _chō_ of upland holding. He was glad to work on it with
+the digging mattock of the farmer.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[36] Son-God-of-the-Spirit-of-the-Province.
+
+[37] It was a tiny squid. There are seventy sorts of cuttlefish and
+octopuses in Japanese waters. Value of dried cuttlefish in 1917, 4
+million yen.
+
+[38] The hands are laid flat on the ground with finger-tips meeting
+and the forehead touches the hands.
+
+[39] See Chapter XX.
+
+[40] The root grows to about the size of a big apple. It may be seen
+in the shops in white dried sections. A stiff greyish jelly made from
+it is eaten with rice. It is also eaten as _oden_ or _dengaku_.
+
+[41] See Appendix IV.
+
+[42] See Appendix XX.
+
+[43] See Appendix V.
+
+[44] The truth is being learnt by the younger generation.
+
+[45] For crime statistics, see Appendix VI.
+
+[46] _Harakiri_ (_seppuku_ is the polite word) still happens. Just
+before writing this note I read of the captain of the first company of
+the Japanese garrison in a Korean town having committed _seppuku_
+because of a sense of responsibility for the irregularities of
+subordinates. But of 7,239 suicides of men in 1916 only 308 were by
+cold steel. Of 4,558 cases of women suicides 140 were by steel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+OF "DEVIL-GON" AND YOSOGI
+
+The consciousness of a common purpose in mankind, or even the
+acknowledgment that such a common purpose is possible, would alter the
+face of world politics at once.--GRAHAM WALLAS
+
+
+There was a bad landlord who was nicknamed "Devil-gon." He was shot.
+There was another bad landlord who, as he was crossing a narrow bridge
+over a brook, was "pistolled through the sleeve and tumbled into the
+water." Although the murderer was well known, his name was never
+revealed to the police, and the family of the dead man was glad to
+leave the district. The villagers celebrated their freedom by eating
+the "red rice" which is prepared on occasions of festivity. In another
+village, the _gunchō_ who spoke to me of these things said, there were
+several usurious landlords. "The village headman got angry. He called
+the landlords to him. He said to them that if they continued to lend
+at high interest the people would set fire to their houses and he
+would not proceed against them. So the landlords became affrighted and
+amended their lives." The rural people of Japan have always three
+weapons against usury, it was explained to me. First, there may be
+tried injuring the offending person's house--rural dwellings are
+mainly bamboo work and mud--by bumping into it with the heavy
+palanquin which is carried about the roadway at the time of the annual
+festival. If such a hint should prove ineffective, recourse may be had
+to arson. Finally, there is the pistol. I remember someone's remark,
+"A man does not lose a common mind and heart by becoming a landowner."
+
+I could not travel about the rural districts without there being
+brought under my eyes the conditions which lead country girls to go to
+the towns as _joro_ (prostitutes). A considerable agricultural
+authority who had been all over Japan told me that he was in no doubt
+that most of the girls adopted an immoral life through poverty. I
+spoke to this man, who had been abroad, of the disgrace to Japan
+involved in the presence of thousands of Japanese _joro_ at Singapore
+and so many other ports of the Asiatic mainland. Did these women go
+there of their free will? My informant was of opinion that "half are
+deceived." I remember that on the Japanese steamship by which I went
+out to Japan there were several Japanese girls, degraded in aspect and
+apparently in ill health, who were returning from Singapore. They were
+shepherded by an evil-looking fellow. The parting of these
+unfortunates from their girl friends as the vessel was about to start
+was a piteous sight. An official who called on me in Aichi--I
+understood that he was the chief of the prefectural police--told me
+that there were in the prefecture 2,011 girls in 222 houses, and that
+there were in a year 725,598 customers, of whom 2,147 were foreigners.
+Sums of from 200 to 500 yen might be paid to parents for a girl for a
+three-years term. Food and clothes were also provided, but the girls
+were almost invariably drawn into debt to the keepers, and not more
+than 15 per cent. were able to return to their villages. All the girls
+in the houses had alleged poverty as the reason for their being
+there.[47]
+
+Because I was told that the moral condition of the town of
+Anjo--population 17,000--where the agricultural school of the
+prefecture is situated, had improved since its establishment, I asked
+for some statistics. I found that there were 23 registered geisha, no
+_joro_, 50 teahouse girls with dubious characters and 55 sellers of
+_saké_. Against these figures were to be counted 19 Buddhist temples
+of four sects with 19 priests and 20 Shinto shrines with 4 priests.
+
+I met a schoolmaster who had prepared a history of his village in a
+dozen beautifully written volumes. He had been a vegetarian for
+fifteen years because, as a Buddhist, he believed that "all living
+things are in some degree my relatives." I picked up from him a
+variant on "the early bird catches the worm." It was, "The early riser
+may find a lost _rin_" (tenth of a farthing). He gave me another
+proverb, "The contents of a spitting pot, like riches, become fouler
+the more they accumulate."
+
+I heard of temples which were promoting rural improvement by means of
+lanterns. In one village the lanterns were at the service of borrowers
+at three different places. The inscription on the lanterns says,
+"Think of the mercy of Buddha who illuminates the darkness of your
+heart." There is written in smaller characters, "If you live half a
+_ri_ away you need not return this lantern." Three hundred lanterns
+are lost or damaged in a year, but paper lanterns are cheap.
+
+One temple has a society composed of those who have family graves in
+its grounds. These people "study how to get the most abundant crop."
+There is a prize for the best cultivated _tan_. Under this temple's
+auspices there is not only a co-operative credit and purchase
+association, a poultry society and an annual exhibition of
+agricultural products, but a school for nurses--they are "taught to be
+nurses not only physically but morally." The boys and girls of the
+village are invited to the temple once a month and "told a story." The
+youngsters are asked to come to a "learning meeting" where they must
+recite or exhibit something they have written or drawn; "blockheads as
+well as clever children are encouraged." A fund is being raised so
+that "a genius who may be suffering from poverty may be able to get
+proper education." Then there is a Women's Religious Association which
+aims at "the improvement, necessary from a religious point of view, in
+the home and of agricultural business." Sermons are given to 500 women
+monthly. The society sent comfort bags, containing letters,
+tooth-brushes and sweets, to soldiers at the taking of Tsingtao. A
+similar organisation for men had for thirteen years listened to a
+monthly lecture by a well-known priest. It sends occasional
+subscriptions outside the village. Finally, this praiseworthy temple
+issues every month 20,000 copies of a 4-1/2-sen magazine.
+
+The Shinto shrines of the prefecture have in all a little more than 40
+_chō_ of land. Someone has hit on the plan of getting the
+agricultural societies of the county and villages to provide the
+priests with rice seed of superior varieties, the crop of which can be
+exchanged with farmers for common rice. This is done on a profitable
+basis, because the shrines exchange unpolished rice for polished. A
+_gō_ of seed rice makes only about .5 _gō_ when husked.
+
+I walked along the road some little way with a Buddhist priest. In
+answer to my enquiry he said that as a Buddhist he felt no difficulty
+about the bag strung across his shoulders being of leather, for the
+founder of his sect (Shinshu) ate meat. Even a strict Buddhist might
+nowadays eat animals not intentionally killed, animals which had not
+been seen alive and animals which were killed painlessly. But my
+companion abstained as much as possible from meat. As to the reason
+why some priests were inactive in the work of rural amelioration, he
+supposed that their poverty, the tradition of devoting themselves to
+unworldly business and the fact that many of them were hereditary
+priests accounted for it. He dwelt on the things in common between
+Shinshu and Christianity and said that, next to the teaching of the
+head of the agricultural college in the prefecture, the preaching of a
+missionary had led him to work for the good of his village.
+
+In my host's house in the evening someone happened to quote the
+proverb, "Richer after the fire." It means, of course, that after the
+fire the neighbours are so ready with help that the last state of the
+victim of the fire is better than the first. The view was expressed
+that hitherto charitable institutions of some Western patterns had not
+been so much needed in Japan as might be supposed.[48] "Those who go
+to Europe from Japan are indeed much surprised by the number of
+institutions to help people." Here, however, is the story of an
+institution coming into existence in a village: "There was a man who
+was thought to be rich, but he lived like a miser. His _shoji_ were
+made of waste paper and his guests received tea only. So he was
+despised. But many years afterwards it was found that for a long time
+he had been collecting books. Then, to the surprise of everybody, he
+built a library for his village. He is not at all proud of this and
+those who ridiculed him are now ashamed."
+
+I was invited to a "Rural Life Exhibition." Some agricultural produce
+was shown, but three hundred of the exhibits were manuscript books or
+diagrams. One diagram illustrated the development in a particular
+county of the use of two bactericides, formalin and carbon bisulphide.
+The formalin was in use to the value of 2,000 yen. Then there was a
+wall picture, a sort of Japanese "The Child: What will he Become?" The
+good boy, aged fifteen, was shown spending his spare time in making
+straw rope to the value of 3 sen 3 rin nightly, with the result that
+after thirty years of such industry he became a rural capitalist who
+possessed 1,000 yen and lived in circumstances of dignity. In contrast
+with this virtuous career there was shown the rural rake's progress. A
+youth who was in the habit of laying out 3 sen 3 rin riotously in
+sweet-shops was proved to have wasted 1,000 yen in thirty years: the
+prodigal was justly exhibited fleeing from his home in debt.
+
+One of the books on exhibition mentioned the volumes most in demand at
+some village library. I translate the titles:
+
+        Physical and Intellectual Training
+        About being Ambitious
+        The Housewife of a Peasant Family
+        The Management of a Farm
+        The Days when Statesmen were Boys
+        Culture and Striving
+        Essence of Rural Improvement
+        A Hundred Beautiful Stories
+        The Art of Composition
+        The Preparation of the Conscript
+        A Medical Treatise
+        A Translation of "Self-Help"
+        Nature and Human Life
+        The Glories of Native Places
+        Anecdotes concerning Culture
+        Lives of Distinguished Peasants
+        Mulberry Planting
+        Chinese Romances
+        Glories of this Peaceful Reign
+        Ninomiya Sontoku
+
+I noticed among the exhibits a short autobiography of a farmer, an
+engaging egoist who wrote:
+
+"As a young man my will was not in study and though I used my wits I
+did many stupid things and the results were bad. Then I became a
+little awakened and for two years I studied at night with the primary
+school teacher. After that I thought to myself in secret, 'Shall I
+become a wise man in this village, or, by diligently farming, a rich
+man?' That was my spiritual problem. Then all my family gathered
+together and consulted and decided[49] that it would suit the family
+better if I were to become a rich man, and I also agreed. To
+accomplish that aim I increased my area under cultivation and worked
+hard day and night. I cut down the cryptomeria at my homestead and
+planted in their stead mulberries and persimmons. And I slowly changed
+my dry land into rice fields (making it therefore more valuable). The
+soil I got I heaped up at the homestead for eighteen years until I had
+28,000 cubic feet. I was able then to raise the level of my house
+which had become damp and covered with mould. The increase of my
+cultivated area and of the yield per _tan_ and the improvement of my
+house and the practice of economy were the delight of my life. I felt
+grateful to my ancestors who gave me such a strong body. Sometimes I
+kept awake all night talking with my wife about the goodness of my
+ancestors. Also when in bed I planned a compact homestead. I once read
+a Japanese poem, 'What a joy to be born in this peaceful reign and to
+be favoured by ploughs and horses.' (Most Japanese farming is done
+without either horses or ploughs.) It went deeply into my heart. Also
+I heard from the school teacher of four loves: love of State, love of
+Emperor, love of teacher and love of parent. I have been much favoured
+by those loves. I also heard the doctrines of Ninomiya: sincerity,
+diligence, moderate living, unselfishness. I felt it a great joy to
+live remembering those doctrines. I also went to the prefectural
+experiment station and studied fruit growing and my spirit was much
+expanded. I returned again to the station and the expert talked to me
+very earnestly. I asked for a special variety of persimmon. The expert
+sent to Gifu prefecture for it. I planted the tree and made its top
+into six grafts. It bore fruit and many passers-by envied it. Two
+years after that I grafted five hundred trees and sold the grafted
+stock."
+
+Several villages sent to the exhibition statistics of great interest.
+One village set forth the changes which had taken place in the social
+status of its inhabitants[50]. Some communities were represented by
+statements of their hours of labour[51]. One small community's tables
+showed how many of its inhabitants were "diligent people," how many
+"average workers" and how many "other people[52]." A county
+agricultural association had painstakingly collected information not
+only about the work done in a year[53] and the financial returns
+obtained by three typical farmers but about the way in which they
+spent what they earned.[54]
+
+On my way back from the exhibition I heard the story of a priest. When
+fourteen years of age he obtained seeds of cryptomeria and planted
+them in a spot in the hills. He also practised many economies. When
+still in his teens he asked permission to take two shares in a 50-yen
+money-sharing club, but was not allowed to do so as no one would
+believe that he could complete his payments. He persisted, however,
+that he would be able to pay what was required and he was at length
+accepted as a member. At twenty he became priest of a small temple
+which was in bad repair and had a debt of 125 yen. He brought with him
+his 100 yen from the club and the young cryptomeria. He planted the
+trees in the temple grounds. He said, "I wish to rebuild the temple
+when these trees grow up." He cultivated the land adjoining his temple
+and contrived to employ several labourers. At last the cryptomeria
+grew large enough for his purpose and he rebuilt the temple, expending
+on the work not only his trees but 600 yen which he had by this time
+saved. Then he proceeded to bring waste land into cultivation. At the
+age of sixty-two he gave his temple to another priest and went to live
+in a hut on the waste land. There came a tidal wave near the place, so
+he went to the sufferers and invited five families to his now
+cultivated waste land. He gave them each a _tan_ of land and the
+material for building cottages and showed them how to open more land.
+
+[Illustration: "HIBACHI" AND, IN "TOKONOMA," FLOWER ARRANGEMENT AND
+"KAKEMONO."]
+
+[Illustration: SCHOOL SHRINE CONTAINING EMPEROR'S PORTRAIT.]
+
+A good judge expressed the opinion that Buddhism was flourishing in 80
+per cent. of the villages of Aichi, but this was in a material and
+ceremonial sense. The prefectures of Aichi and Niigata had been called
+the "kitchens of Hongwanji"[55] (the great temple at Kyoto), such
+liberal contributions were forthcoming from them. "A belief in
+progress," this speaker said, "may be a substitute for religion for
+many of our people; another substitute is a belief in Japan." A
+village headman from the next prefecture (Shidzuoka) said: "People in
+my village do not omit to perform their Buddhist ceremonies, but they
+are not at their hearts religious. In our prefecture the influence of
+Ninomiya is greater than that of Buddhism. If the villagers are good
+it is Ninomiyan principles that make them so. Under Ninomiyan
+influence the spirit of association has been aroused, thriftiness has
+been encouraged and extravagance reprimanded."
+
+[Illustration: FENCING AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL.]
+
+[Illustration: WAR MEMENTOES AT THE SAME SCHOOL--ALL SCHOOLS HAVE SOME]
+
+I told Mr. Yamasaki one day that there was an old Scotswoman who
+divided good people into "rael Christians and guid moral fowk." What I
+was curious to know was what proportion of Japanese rural people might
+be fairly called "real Buddhists" and what proportion "good moral
+folk." "There are certainly some real Buddhists, not merely good moral
+folk," he assured me. "If you penetrate deeply into the lives of the
+people you will be able to find a great number of them. In ordinary
+daily life, during a period when nothing extraordinary happens, it is
+not easy to distinguish the two classes; but when any trouble comes
+then those real religious people are undismayed, while the ordinarily
+good moral people may sometimes go astray. The proportion of religious
+people is rather large among the poor compared with the middle and
+upper classes. These poor people are always weighted with many
+troubles which would be a calamity to persons of the middle or upper
+classes. Such humble folk get support for their lives from what is in
+their hearts. Though they may suffer privation or loss they are glad
+that they can live on by the mercy of Buddha. There are some religious
+people even among those who are not poor. They are usually people who
+have lost some of their riches suddenly, or a dear child, or have been
+deprived of high position, or have met some kind of misfortune.
+Sometimes a man may become religious because he feels deeply the
+misfortunes or miseries of a neighbour or the miseries of war. Or his
+religion may come by meditation. A man who begins to be religious is
+not, however, at once noticed. On the contrary, if he is a true
+believer his daily life will be most ordinary."
+
+One day I passed a primary school playground. The girls had just
+finished and the boys were beginning Swedish drill. Everyone engaged
+in the drill, including the master, was barefoot.
+
+I saw that some of the cottages were built in an Essex fashion, of
+puddled clay and chopped straw faced with tarred boards. Some
+dwellings, however, were faced with straw instead of boards. They had
+just had their wall thatch renewed for the winter.
+
+In one spot there was a quarter of a mile of wooden aqueduct for the
+service of the paddy fields. Much agricultural pumping is done in
+Aichi. I visited an irrigation installation where pumps (from London)
+were turning barren hill tops into paddy fields.[56] The work was
+being done by a co-operative society of 550 members who had borrowed
+the 40,000 yen they needed from a bank on an undertaking to repay in
+fifteen years.
+
+It was stated that common paddy near Anjo had been bought at 5,000 yen
+per _chō_ and not for building purposes. When one member of our
+company said, "The farmers here are rivalling each other in hard
+work," the weightiest authority among us replied: "What the farmer
+must do is to work not harder but better. At present he is not working
+on scientific principles. The hours he is spending on really
+profitable labour are not many. He must work more rationally. In 26
+villages in the south-west of Japan, where farming calls for much
+labour, it was found that the number of days' work in the year was
+only 192. Statistics for Eastern Japan give 186 days.[57] As to a
+secondary industry, one or two hours' work a night at straw rope
+making for a month may bring in a yen because the market for rope is
+confined to Japan. The same with _zori_, a coarse sort being
+purchasable for 2 sen a pair. But supplementary work like silk-worm
+culture produces an article of luxury for which there is a world
+market."
+
+When we returned home my host was kind enough to summarise for me--the
+general reader may skip here--some of the reasons set forth by a
+professor of agricultural politics for the farmer's position being
+what it is:
+
+1. The average area cultivated per family is very small.
+
+2. The law of diminishing return.
+
+3. Imperfection of the agricultural system. Mainly crop raising, not a
+combination of crop and stock raising, as in England. No profitable
+secondary business but silkworm culture. Therefore the distribution of
+labour throughout the year is not good and the number of days of
+effective labour is relatively small.
+
+4. The commercial side of agriculture has not been sufficiently
+developed.
+
+5. There has been a rise in the standard of living. In the old days
+the farmer did not complain; he thought his lot could not be changed.
+He was forbidden to adopt a new calling and he was restricted by law
+to a frugal way of living. Now farmers can be soldiers, merchants or
+officials and can live as they please. They begin to compare their
+standard of living with that of other callings. What were once not
+felt to be miseries are now regarded as such.
+
+6. Formerly the farmer had not the expense of education and of losing
+the services of his sons to the army. There is also an increase in
+taxation. A representative family which incurred a public expenditure,
+not including education, of 12.86 yen in 1890, paid in 1898 19.68 yen.
+In 1908 it was faced by a claim for 34.28 yen.[58]
+
+7. Although the area of land does not increase in relation to the
+increase of population, the size of the peasant family is increasing
+owing to the decrease of infanticide and abortion and the development
+of sanitation.
+
+8. The farmer suffers from debts at high interest.
+
+9. The character, morality and ability of the farmer are not yet fully
+developed.
+
+10. Formerly the farmer lived an economically self-contained
+existence. He had no great need of money. He must now sell his produce
+on a market with wider and wider fluctuations.
+
+11. There are many expensive customs and habits, for instance the two
+or three days' feasting at weddings and funerals.
+
+During the evening I was told this story. In a village in a far part
+of the prefecture there lived a farmer called Yosōgi. He was a thrifty
+and diligent man. When he became old he gave all that he had to his
+son. But the old man could not stop working. He would go to the farm
+and help his son. The son did not like this. He wanted his old father
+to rest. In the end he found that the only way to cope with his
+industrious parent was to work very hard and leave him nothing to do.
+But the old man was not to be balked. He took himself off to the
+hillside and began to make a paddy field where there had never been a
+paddy field before. To make a paddy field on such a slope is a
+difficult task. The land must be embanked with stones and then
+levelled. The building of the strong embankment alone calls for much
+labour. The old man toiled very hard at his job and sometimes his son
+in despair sent his labourers to help him. At length the paddy field
+was finished. But it was only a tenth of a _tan_ in area. When the son
+saw the small result of so much labour he said to his father, "I
+grieve for the way you have toiled. You have laboured hard for many
+days and my labourers have helped you, but all that has been
+accomplished is the making of a paddy field so small and distant that
+it is uneconomical."
+
+To this the old man replied: "When you go to Tokyo and see the
+graveyard at Aoyama you will behold there many monuments of generals
+and ministers of State. Their merits and their works in this world are
+described on those monuments. But do you know where the monument of
+the famous hero Kusunoki Masashige is? It is near Kobe, and it is not
+more than half as big as those monuments at Tokyo. Do you know where
+the monument of the great Taiko is? It is in Kyoto, but it is only
+recently that this monument was put up. Thus the monuments of our
+greatest heroes are small or have been erected recently. The reason is
+that it is unnecessary to raise big monuments for them because what
+they did in their lives was in itself their monument. They built their
+monument in the hearts of the people. Therefore we can never judge
+from the size of the monument the kind of work which was accomplished
+by the man who sleeps under it. Monuments are not only for ministers
+and warriors. We peasants can also erect monuments in our own way. To
+open a new paddy field, to plant the bare hillside with trees, these
+are our monuments. How lonely it would be for me if there were no
+monument left after my death. However small this paddy field may be,
+it will not be forgotten so long as it yields for your posterity the
+blessing of its rice crop." "Happily," the interpreter added, "the old
+man did not die so soon as he thought he would do. He lived for
+several years and planted the bare hillside with trees. Now the wood
+which grows there is worth 10,000 yen."
+
+A peasant proprietor expressed the conviction that goodness in a
+family was "not the result of its own efforts but of the accumulation
+of ancestral effort." The "ancestral merits and good spirit remain in
+the family." On the problem of rich and poor he quoted the proverb,
+"The very rich cannot remain very rich for more than three
+generations; a poor family cannot long remain poor." He said that he
+would be interested to know what I found to be "the causes of our
+villagers becoming good or bad." "For ourselves," he said, quoting
+another proverb, "'At the foot of the lighthouse it is dark.'"
+
+
+
+
+THE MOST EXACTING CROP IN THE WORLD
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE HARVEST FROM THE MUD
+
+_Toyo-ashiwara-no-chiiho-aki-mizuho-no-Kuni_ (Land of plenteous ears
+of rice in the plain of luxuriant reeds).
+
+
+The vast difference between Far Eastern and Western agriculture is
+marked by the fact that, except by using such a phrase as shallow
+pond--and this is inadequate, because a pond has a sloping bottom and
+a rice field necessarily a level one--it is difficult to describe a
+rice field in terms intelligible to a Western farmer. The Japanese
+have a special word for a rice field, _ta_, water field, written
+[Kanji: ta]. It will be noticed that the ideograph looks like a water
+field in four compartments. Another word, _hata_ or _hatake_,[59]
+written [Kanji: hata], tells the story of the dry or upland field. It
+is the ideograph for water field in association with the ideograph for
+fire, and, as we shall see later on, when we make acquaintance with
+"fire farming," an upland field is a tract the vegetation of which was
+originally burnt off.
+
+Many of us have seen rice growing in Italy or in the United States.
+But in Japan[60] the paddies are very-much smaller than anything to be
+seen in the Po Valley and in Texas. Owing to the plentiful water
+supply of a mountainous land, cultivation proceeds with some degree of
+regularity and with a certain independence of the rainy season; and
+there has been applied to traditional rice farming not a few
+scientific improvements.
+
+There is a kind of rice with a low yield called upland rice which,
+like corn, is grown in fields. But the first requisite of general rice
+culture is water. The ordinary rice crop can be produced only on a
+piece of ground on which a certain depth of water is maintained.
+
+In order to maintain this depth of water, three things must be done.
+The plot of ground must be made level, low banks of earth must be
+built round it in order to keep in the water, and a system of
+irrigation must be arranged to make good the loss of water by
+evaporation, by leakage and by the continual passing on of some of the
+water to other plots belonging to the same owner or to other farmers.
+The common name of a rice plot is paddy, and the rice with its husk
+on, that is, as it is knocked from the ear by threshing, is called
+paddy rice. The rice exported from Japan is some of it husked and some
+of it polished.
+
+[Illustration: A 200-YEARS-OLD JAPANESE DRAWING OF THE RICE PLANT]
+
+Some 90 per cent. of the rice grown in Japan is ordinary rice. The
+remaining 10 per cent. is about 2 per cent. upland and 8 per cent,
+glutinous[61]--the sort used for making the favourite _mochi_ (rice
+flour dumplings, which few foreigners are able to digest). It would be
+possible to collect in Japan specimens of rice under 4,000 different
+names, but, like our potato names, many of these represent duplicate
+varieties. Rice, again reminding us of potatoes, is grown in early,
+middle and late season sorts.[62]
+
+Just one-half of the cultivated area of Japan is devoted to paddy,
+but there is to be added to this area under rice more than a quarter
+million acres producing the upland rice, the yield of which is lower
+than that of paddy rice. The paddy and upland rice areas together make
+up more than a half of the cultivated land. The paddies which are not
+in situations favourable to the production of second crops of rice
+(they are grown in one prefecture only) are used, if the water can be
+drawn off, for growing barley or wheat or green manure as a second
+crop[63].
+
+It is not only the Eastern predilection for rice and the wet condition
+of the country, but the heavy cropping power of the plant[64]--500
+_go_ per _tan_ above barley and wheat yields--that makes the Japanese
+farmer labour so hard to grow it[65]. Intensively cultivated though
+Japan is, the percentage of cultivated land to the total area of the
+country is, however, little more than half that in Great Britain[66].
+This is because Japan is largely mountains and hills. Level land for
+rice paddies can be economically obtained in many parts of such a
+country by working it in small patches only. There is no minimum size
+for a Japanese paddy. I have seen paddies of the area of a counterpane
+and even of the size of a couple of dinner napkins.
+
+The problem is not only to make the paddy in a spot where it can be
+supplied with water, but to make it in such a way that it will hold
+all the water it needs. It must be level, or some of the rice plants
+will have only their feet wet while others will be up to their necks.
+The ordinary procedure in making a paddy is to remove the top soil,
+beat down the subsoil beneath, and then restore the top soil--there
+may be from 5 to 10 in. of it. But the best efforts of the
+paddy-field builder may be brought to naught by springs or by a
+gravelly bottom. Then the farmer must make the best terms he can with
+fortune.
+
+Paddies, as may be imagined from their physical limitations, are of
+every conceivable shape. There is assuredly no way of altering the
+shape of the paddies which are dexterously fitted into the hillsides.
+But large numbers of paddies are on fairly level ground.[67] There is
+no real need for these being of all sizes and patterns. They are what
+they are because of the degree to which their construction was
+conditioned by water-supply problems, the financial resources of those
+who dug them or the position of neighbours' land. And no doubt in the
+course of centuries there has been a great deal of swapping, buying
+and inheriting. So the average farmer's paddies are not only of all
+shapes and sizes but here, there and everywhere.
+
+Therefore there arose wise men to point out that for a farmer to work
+a number of oddly shaped bits of land scattered all about the village
+was uneconomical and out of date. (Like the old English strip system
+which still survives in the Isle of Axholme.) So what was called an
+adjustment of paddy fields was carried out in many places. The farmers
+were persuaded to throw their varied assortment of fields into
+hotchpot and then to have the mass cut up into oblong fields of equal
+or relative sizes. These were then shared out according to what each
+man had contributed. In some cases a little compensation had to be
+given, for there were differences in the qualities as well as the
+areas of the holdings. But reasonable justice was eventually done all
+round, and ever afterwards a farmer, now that his holding was in
+adjoining tracts, might spend his time working in his paddies instead
+of in walking to and from them. Because many unnecessary paths and
+divisions between paddies were done away with there was brought about
+a saving of labour and increased efficiency of cultivation. There was
+also a little more land to cultivate and the paddies were big enough
+for an ox or a pony to be employed in them, and the water supply was
+better and sufficiently under control for floods to be averted.[68] In
+brief, costs were lower and crops were better.[69]
+
+Thus all over Japan nowadays one sees considerable tracts of adjusted
+paddy fields. They are a joy to the rural sociologist. In its way
+there has been nothing like it agriculturally in our time. For each of
+these little farmers valued his odds and ends of paddy above their
+agricultural worth. He or his forbears had made them or bought them or
+married into them. And he believed that his own paddies were in a
+condition of fertility surpassing not a few, and he doubted greatly
+whether after adjustment he would find himself in possession of as
+valuable land as his own. Sometimes also he believed that his paddies
+were especially fortunate geomantically.[70] Yet, convinced by the
+arguments for adjustment, the peasant agreed to the proposed
+rearrangement, let his old tracts go and accepted in exchange neat
+oblongs out of the common stock. Sometimes so great was the change
+brought about in a village by adjustment that more than the paddies
+were dealt with. Cottages were taken to new sites and the bones in
+many little grave plots were removed. In a village in which there had
+been an exhumation of the bones of 2,700 persons and a transference of
+tombstones, I was told that the assembling together of the remains of
+the departed in one place "had had a unifying effect on the
+community." In this village within a period of twelve years 96 per
+cent. of the paddies had been adjusted.[71]
+
+An advantage of adjustment which has not yet been mentioned is that
+adjusted paddies can usually be dried off at harvest and can therefore
+be put under a second crop, usually of grain. More than a third of the
+paddy-field area of the country can be dried off, and therefore
+produces a second crop of barley or wheat. The farmer has two
+advantages if, owing to adjustment or natural advantages, he is able
+to dry off his land. Of the first or rice crop, if he is a tenant
+farmer, he has had to pay his landlord perhaps 60 per cent, in rent,
+less straw;[72] but the second crop is his own. The further advantage
+is that second-crop land can be cultivated dry shod. One-crop paddy is
+under water all the year round, and must be cultivated with wet feet
+and legs.
+
+It is because more than half the paddies are always under water that
+rice cultivation is so laborious. Think of the Western farm labourer
+being asked to plough and the allotment holder to dig almost knee-deep
+in mud. Although much paddy is ploughed with the aid of an ox, a cow
+or a pony,[73] most rice is the product of mattock or spade labour.
+There is no question about the severity of the labour of paddy
+cultivation. For a good crop it is necessary that the soil shall be
+stirred deeply.
+
+Following the turning over of the stubble under water, comes the clod
+smashing and harrowing by quadrupedal or bipedal labour. It is not
+only a matter of staggering about and doing heavy work in sludge. The
+sludge is not clean dirt and water but dirty dirt and water, for it
+has been heavily dosed with manure, and the farmer is not fastidious
+as to the source from which he obtains it.[74] And the sludge
+ordinarily contains leeches. Therefore the cultivator must work
+uncomfortably in sodden clinging cotton feet and leg coverings. Long
+custom and necessity have no doubt developed a certain indifference to
+the physical discomfort of rice cultivation. The best rice will grow
+only in mud and, except on the large uniform paddies of the adjusted
+areas, there is small opportunity for using mechanical methods.
+
+One day when I went into the country it happened to be raining hard,
+but the men and women toiled in the paddies. They were breaking up the
+flooded clods with a tool resembling the "pulling fork" used in the
+West for getting manure from a dung cart. On other farms the task of
+working the quagmire was being done by two persons with the aid of a
+disconsolate pony harnessed to a rude harrow. The men and women in the
+paddies kept off the rain by means of the usual wide straw hats and
+loose straw mantles, admirable in their way in their combination of
+lightness and rainproofness. Often, besides the farmer's wife, a young
+widow or a young unmarried woman may be seen at work, but, as was once
+explained to me, "The old Miss is not frequent in Japan."[75]
+
+Planting time arrives in the middle of June or thereabouts, when the
+paddy has been brought by successive harrowings into a fine tilth or
+rather sludge. It is illustrative of the exacting ways of rice that
+not only has it to have a growing place specially fashioned for it, it
+cannot be sown as cereals are sown. It must be sown in beds and then
+be transplanted. The seed beds have been sown in the latter part of
+April or the early part of May, according to the variety of rice and
+the locality.[76] The seeds have usually been selected by immersion in
+salt water and have been afterwards soaked in order to advance
+germination. There is a little soaking pond on every farm. By the use
+of this pond the period in which the seeds are exposed to the
+depredations of insects, etc., is diminished. The seed bed itself is
+about the width of an onion bed, in order that weeds and insect pests
+may be easily reached. The seed bed is, of course, under water. The
+seed is dropped into the water and sinks into the mud. Within about
+thirty or forty days the seedlings are ready for transplanting. They
+have been the object of unremitting care. Weeds have been plucked out
+and insects have been caught by nets or trapped. There is a
+contrivance which, by means of a wheel at either end, straddles the
+seed bed, and is drawn slowly from one end to the other. It catches
+the insects as they hop or fly up.
+
+In many localities specially fine varieties are grown for seed on the
+land of the Shinto shrines. In other localities special sorts are
+raised in ordinary paddies but surrounded by the rope and white paper
+streamers which represent a consecrated place. In not a few villages
+there are communal seed beds so that many farmers may grow the same
+variety, and there may be a considerable bulk for co-operative sale.
+
+At transplanting time every member of the family capable of helping
+renders assistance. Friends also give their aid if it is not planting
+time for them too. The work is so engrossing that young children who
+are not at school are often left to their own devices. Sometimes they
+play by the ditch round the paddies and are drowned. Five such cases
+of drowning are reported from three prefectures on the day I write
+this. The suggestion is made that in the rice districts there should
+be common nurseries for farmers' children at planting time.
+
+The rate at which the planters, working in a row across the paddy, set
+out the seedlings in the mud below the water, is remarkable.[77] The
+first weeding or raking takes place about a fortnight after planting.
+After that there are three more weedings, the last being about the end
+of August. All kinds of hoes are used in the sludge. They are usually
+provided with a wooden or tin float. But most of the weeding is done
+simply by thrusting the hand into the mud, pulling out the weed and
+thrusting it back into the sludge to rot. The back-breaking character
+of this work may be imagined. As much of it is done in the hottest
+time of the year the workers protect themselves by wide-brimmed hats
+of the willow-plate pattern and by flapping straw cloaks or by bundles
+of straw fastened on their backs.
+
+A sharp look-out must be kept for insects of various sorts. In more
+than one place I saw the boys and girls of elementary schools wading
+in the paddies and stroking the young rice with switches in order to
+make noxious insects rise. The creatures were captured by the young
+enthusiasts with nets. The children were given special times off from
+school work in which to hunt the rice pests and were encouraged to
+bring specimens to school.
+
+There is no greater delight to the eye than the paddies in their early
+green, rippled and gently laid over by the wind. (One should say
+greens, for there is every tint from the rather woe-begone yellowish
+green of the newly planted out rice to the happy luxuriant dark green
+of the paddies that have long been enjoying the best of quarters.) As
+harvest time approaches,[78] the paddies, because they are not all
+planted with the same variety of rice, are in patches of different
+shades. Some are straw colour, some are reddish brown or almost black.
+A poet speaks of the "hanging ears of rice." Rice always seems to hang
+its head more than other crops. It is weaker in the straw than barley,
+but rice frequently droops not only because of its natural habit, but
+because it has been over-manured or wrongly manured or because of wind
+or wet.
+
+Beyond wind,[79] insects and drought, floods are the enemies of rice.
+When the plants are young, three or four days' flooding do not matter
+much, but in August, when the ears are shooting, it is a different
+matter. The sun pours down and soon rots the rice lying in the warm
+water. Sometimes the farmer, by almost withdrawing the water from his
+paddies, raises the temperature of the soil with benefit to the crop.
+
+The farmer is fortunate who is able to get the water completely out of
+his paddies by the time harvest arrives, but, as we have seen,
+two-thirds of the paddies must be harvested in sludge. Many crops are
+muddied before they can be cut. Sometimes on the eve of harvest the
+farmer wades in and tries, by arranging the fallen stems across one
+another, to keep some of the ears out of the water. But he is not very
+successful. Rice may lie in the wet a week or even the best end of a
+fortnight without serious damage. But all that this means is that
+within the period specified it may not sprout. It must be damaged to
+some extent even by a few days' immersion. The reason why it is not
+damaged more than it is is no doubt, first, because rice is a plant
+which has been brought up to take its chances with water, and in the
+second place because the thing which is known to the housewife as rice
+is not really the grain at all but the interior of the grain.
+
+Western farmers are hard put to it when their grain crops are beaten
+down by wind and rain; Japanese agriculturists, because they gather
+their harvest with a short sickle, do not find a laid crop difficult
+to cut. But these harvesters are very muddy indeed. When the rice is
+cut and the sheaves are laid along the low mud wall of the paddy they
+are still partly in the sludge. We know how miserable a wet harvest is
+at home, but think of the slushy harvest with which most Japanese
+farmers struggle every year of their lives. The rice grower, although
+year in and year out he has the advantage of a great deal of sunshine,
+seldom gets his crop in without some rain. How does he manage to dry
+his October and November rice? By means of a temporary fence or rack
+which he rigs up in his paddy field or along a path or by the
+roadside. On this structure the sheaves are painstakingly suspended
+ears down. Sometimes he utilises poles suspended between trees. These
+trees, grown on the low banks of the paddies, have their trunks
+trimmed so that they resemble parasols.
+
+When the sheaves are removed in order to be threshed on the upland
+part of the holding, they are carried away at either end of a pole on
+a man's shoulder or are piled up on the back of an ox, cow or pony.
+The height of the pile under which some animals stagger up from the
+paddies gives one a vivid conception of "the last straw."
+
+Threshing is usually done by a man, woman, girl or youth taking as
+many stems as can be easily grasped in both hands and drawing the
+ears, first one way and then another, through a horizontal row of
+steel teeth. The flail is not used for threshing rice but is employed
+for barley. Another common way of knocking out grain is by beating the
+straw over a table or a barrel. There are all sorts of cheap
+hand-worked threshing machines. After the threshing of the rice comes
+the winnowing, which may be done by the aid of a machine but is more
+likely to be effected in the immemorial way, by one person pouring the
+roughly threshed ears from a basket or skep while another worker
+vigorously fans the grain. The result is what is known as paddy rice.
+The process which follows winnowing is husking. This is done in the
+simplest possible form of hand mill. Before husking the rice grain is
+in appearance not unlike barley and it is no easy matter to get its
+husk off. The husking mill is often made of hardened clay with many
+wooden teeth on the rubbing surface. After husking there is another
+winnowing. Then the grains are run through a special apparatus of
+recent introduction called _mangoku doshi_, so that faulty ones may be
+picked out. The result is unpolished rice.
+
+It looks grey and unattractive, and unfortunately the unprepossessing
+but valuable outer coat is polished away. This is done in a mortar
+hollowed out of a section of a tree trunk or out of a large stone. One
+may see a young man or a young woman pounding the rice in the mortar
+with a heavy wooden beetle or mallet. Often the beetle is fastened to
+a beam and worked by foot. Or the polishing apparatus may be driven by
+water, oil or steam power. Constantly in the country there are seen
+little sheds in each of which a small polishing mill driven by a water
+wheel is working away by itself. After the polishing, the _mangoku
+doshi_ is used again to free the rice from the bran. This polished
+rice is still further polished by the dealer, who has more perfect
+mills than the farmer.
+
+[Illustration: SCATTERING ARTIFICIAL MANURE IN ADJUSTED PADDIES.]
+
+The farmer pays his rent not in the polished but in the husked rice.
+At the house of a former _daimyo_ I saw an instrument which the
+feudal lord's bailiff was accustomed to thrust into the rice the
+tenants tendered. If when the instrument was withdrawn more than three
+husks were found adhering, the rice was returned to be recleaned.
+There are names for all the different kinds of rice. For instance,
+paddy rice is _momi_; husked rice is _gemmai_; half-polished rice is
+_hantsukimai_; polished rice is _hakumai_; cooked rice is _gohan_.
+
+[Illustration: PLANTING OUT RICE SEEDLINGS.]
+
+[Illustration: PUSH-CART FOR COLLECTION OF FERTILISER (TOKYO).]
+
+A century ago the farmer ate his rice at the _gemmai_ stage, that is
+in its natural state, and there was no _beri-beri_. The "black saké"
+made from this _gemmai_ rice is still used in Shinto ceremonies. In
+order to produce clear _saké_ the rice was polished. Then well-to-do
+people out of daintiness had their table rice polished. Now polished
+rice is the common food. Half-polished rice may be prepared with two
+or three hundred blows of the mallet; fully polished or white rice may
+receive six, seven or eight hundred, or even it may be a thousand
+blows.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[47] See Appendix VII.
+
+[48] See Appendix VIII.
+
+[49] Family in the French sense.
+
+[50] See Appendix IX.
+
+[51] See Appendix X.
+
+[52] See Appendix XI.
+
+[53] See Appendix XII.
+
+[54] See Appendix XIII.
+
+[55] It was recently stated that the consent of the authorities was
+awaited for collections to the amount of 20 million yen, of which
+13-1/2 million were for the two Hongwanjis.
+
+[56] For yields of new paddy, see Appendix XIV.
+
+[57] See Appendix XII.
+
+[58] It would be from 80 to 100 yen now.
+
+[59] _Hata_ (upland field) is not to be confounded with _hara_
+(prairie, wilderness, moor, often erroneously translated, plain).
+
+[60] Rice is grown in every prefecture. The largest total yields are
+in Niigata, Hyogo, Fukuoka, Aichi, Yamagata, Ibariki and Chiba.
+
+[61] See Appendix XV.
+
+[62] The average yield of the three kinds at Government experimental
+farms--the middle variety yields best and next comes the late
+variety--is about 2-1/2 _koku_ per _tan_ or roughly (a _koku_ being
+about 5 bushels and a _tan_ about a quarter of an acre) about 45
+bushels per acre. The average yield of ordinary rice in Japan in an
+ordinary year is 40-3/4 bushels. In the bumper year of 1920 the
+average yield was 41-1/3 bushels. In the year 1916 (to which most of
+the figures in this book, apart from the Appendix and footnotes, in
+which the latest available figures are given, refer) there was
+produced 58-1/4 million _koku_ of all kinds of rice, the value of
+which was 826-1/2 million yen. The normal yield (average of 7 years,
+excluding the years of highest and lowest production) is 54-1/2
+million _koku_. See Appendix XV.
+
+[63] For wheat and barley crops, see Appendix XVI.
+
+[64] A few rice plants may be seen growing at Kew.
+
+[65] The cost of the rice crop and the income it yields are discussed
+in Appendix XVII.
+
+[66] See Appendix XVIII.
+
+[67] In Japanese rural statistics the word plain may be said to mean a
+tract of land which is neither cultivated nor timbered nor used for
+the purposes of habitation. Sometimes it is called prairie, but this
+is not always correct as it is very often a barren waste, a tract of
+volcanic ash, or an area producing bamboo grass. Some of this land,
+however, could be cultivated after proper irrigation, etc. In this
+note, plains is employed in the ordinary acceptation of the word. Of
+such plains there are several. The plain in which Tokyo is situated is
+82,000 acres in extent. The traveller from Kobe to Tokyo passes
+through the Kinai plain in which Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka stand. It is
+said to feed 2-1/2 million people. Four other plains are reputed to
+feed 7-1/2 million.
+
+[68] Rivers supply about 65 per cent. of the paddy water and
+reservoirs about 21 per cent. The remainder has to be got from other
+sources.
+
+[69] An acreage of a _tan_ is aimed at, but it is frequently larger;
+it may even be 4 _tan_ (an acre). The cost ranges from about 8 yen to
+50 yen per _tan_. The average increase in yield alter adjustment is
+about 15 per cent., to which must be added the yield of the new land
+obtained, say 3 per cent. of the area adjusted. The consent of half
+the owners is required for adjustment.
+
+[70] Once when a friend in Tokyo had trouble with her servants a maid
+informed her that the house was unlucky because a certain necessary
+apartment faced the wrong point of the compass.
+
+[71] In the whole of Japan by 1919 two million and a half acres had
+been adjusted or were in course of adjustment.
+
+[72] The rent is usually 57 per cent. of the rice harvest in the
+paddies and 44 per cent. (in cash or kind) of the crops on the
+non-paddy land. Any crop raised in the paddies between the harvesting
+of one rice crop and the planting out of the next belongs to the
+farmer. (All taxes and rates are paid by the landlord, and amount to
+from 30 to 33 per cent. of the rent.) The area under paddy and the
+area of upland under cultivation are almost equal.
+
+[73] See Appendix XIX.
+
+[74] See Appendix XX.
+
+[75] In 1920 there were 38,922,437 males and 38,083,073 females.
+
+[76] See Appendix XXI.
+
+[77] See Appendix XXII.
+
+[78] The harvest extends from mid-September in the north of Japan to
+the end of October or beginning of November in the south. The harvest
+is taken early in the north for fear of frost.
+
+[79] The "210th day" (counted from the beginning of spring), when
+flowering commences, is so critical a period that the weather
+conditions during the twenty-four hours in every prefecture are
+reported to the Emperor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE RICE BOWL, THE GODS AND THE NATION
+
+I thank whatever gods there be....--HENLEY
+
+I
+
+
+How many people who have not been in the East or in the rice trade
+realise that rice, in the course of the polishing it receives from the
+farmer and the dealer, loses nearly half its bulk? A necessary part of
+the grain is lost. No wonder that sensible people in Japan and the
+West demand the grey unpolished rice. In Japan some enterprising
+person has started selling bottled stuff made from the part of the
+rice grain that is rubbed off in the polishing process. It does not
+look appetising. An easier thing would be to leave some of the coating
+on the rice. One thinks of what Smollett said of white bread:
+
+"They prefer it to wholesome bread because it is whiter. Thus they
+sacrifice their health to a most absurd gratification of a misjudging
+eye, and the tradesman is obliged to poison them in order to live."
+
+Although, for economy's sake, a considerable amount of barley is eaten
+with or instead of rice, it may be said in a general way that the
+Japanese people, like so many millions of other Asiatics, have rice
+for breakfast, rice for lunch and rice for dinner. If they have
+anything to eat between meals it is as like as not to be rice cakes---
+to the foreigner's taste a loathly, half-cooked compost of rice flour
+or pounded rice and water, a sort of tepid underdone muffin. We in the
+West have bread at every meal as the Japanese have rice, but we eat
+our bread not only as plain bread but as toast and bread-and-butter;
+we also ring the changes on brown, white and oat bread.
+
+Among the covered lacquer dishes on the little table set before each
+kneeling breakfaster, luncher or diner in Japan there is one which is
+empty. This is the rice bowl. When the meal begins--or in the case of
+an elaborate dinner at the rice course--the maid brings in a large
+covered wooden copper-bound or brass-bound tub or round lacquered box
+of hot rice. This rice she serves with a big wooden spoon, the only
+spoon ever seen at a Japanese meal. A man may have three helpings or
+four in a bowl about as big as a large breakfast cup. The etiquette is
+that, though other dishes may be pecked at, the rice in one's bowl
+must be finished. The usage on this point may have originated in the
+feeling that it was almost impious to waste the staple food of the
+country. It is not difficult to pick up the last rice grains with the
+wooden _hashi_ (chopsticks), for the rice is skilfully boiled. (Soft
+rice is served to invalids only.) But when the bowl is almost empty
+the custom is to pour into it weak tea or hot water, and then to drink
+this, so getting rid of the odd grains. It is through omitting to
+drink in this way that foreigners get indigestion when at a Japanese
+meal they eat a lot of rice.
+
+At first it is not easy for the foreigner to believe that people can
+come with appetite to several bowls of plain rice three times a
+day.[80] But good rice does seem to have something of the property of
+oatmeal, the property of a continual tastiness. Further, the rice
+eater picks up now and then from a small saucer a piece of pickle
+which may have either a salty or a sweet fermented taste. The
+nutrition gained at a Japanese meal is largely in soups in which the
+bean preparations, _tofu_ and _miso_, and occasionally eggs, are used.
+And there is no country in the world where more fish is eaten than in
+Japan. The coast waters and rivers team with fish, and fish--fresh,
+dried and salted, shell-fish and fish unrecognisable as fish after all
+sorts of ingenious treatment--is consumed by almost everybody.
+
+The Japanese are in no doubt that the foreign rice which is brought
+into the country to supplement the home supply is inferior to their
+own.[81] Inferior means that they prefer the flavour of their own
+rice, just as most Scots prefer oatmeal made from oats grown in
+Scotland.
+
+
+II
+
+In the year of the Coronation--it took place three years after the
+Emperor's accession--two prefectures had the honour of being chosen to
+produce the rice to be placed before gods, Emperor and dignitaries at
+Kyoto. The work was not undertaken without ceremony. I was a witness
+of the rites performed at the planting of the rice in one of the
+prefectures. Plots had been prepared with enormous care. Along the top
+of the special fencing were the Shinto straw bands and paper
+streamers. A small shrine had been built to overlook the plots. Even
+the instruments of the little meteorological station near, by which
+the management of the crop would be guided, were surrounded by straw
+bands and streamers--religion protecting science. The mattocks and
+other implements which had been used in the preparation of the paddy
+or were to be used in getting in the crops and in cultivating,
+harvesting, threshing and cleaning it were all new. Even the herring
+which had manured the plot had been "specially selected and blessed."
+Further, there was a special bath-house where the young men and women
+who were to plant the rice had washed ceremonially at an early hour.
+
+We had reached the spot through a crowd of twenty or thirty thousand
+people who were gathering to witness the ceremony. A covered platform
+had been built in front of the rice field shrine, and on either side
+were large roofed-in spaces for some scores of Shinto priests and the
+favoured spectators. The ceremony lasted two hours. It carried us
+magically away from a Japan of frock coats to Japan of a thousand, it
+may be two thousand years ago. Between the wail of ancient wood and
+wind instruments and the cinema operators who missed nothing external
+and some bored top-hatted spectators who furtively puffed a cigarette
+before the ceremony came to an end,[82] what a gulf! Platter after
+platter of food, sometimes rice, sometimes vegetables, sometimes
+fruit, sometimes a big fish, was passed by one priest to another in
+the sunlight until all the offerings were reverently placed by a
+special dignitary on one of those unpainted, unvarnished, undecorated
+but exquisitely proportioned altars which are an artistic glory of
+Shintoism. The shrine was wholly open on the side of the rice field,
+and the high priest was in full view as he stood before the altar with
+bowed head and folded hands, his robe caught by the breeze, and
+delivered in a loud voice his zealous invocation. His words were
+stressed not only by an acolyte who twanged the strings of a venerable
+harp, but by the song of a lark which rose with the first strains of
+the harpist. The purpose of the ceremony was to call down the gods and
+to gain their blessing for the crop and the new reign. At the moment
+of highest solemnity the thousands assembled bowed their heads: the
+gods were deigning to descend and accept the offering. More ancient
+music, more ceremonial, and the gods having been called upon to return
+to high heaven, the laden platters were gravely removed, and the rice
+planting in the adjoining field began. To the sound of drum the young
+men and women in special costumes strode through the wicket into the
+mud of the paddies, and, under the supervision of the director of the
+prefectural agricultural experiment station in a silk hat, planted out
+the tufts of rice seedlings in scrupulously measured rows.
+
+I asked a distinguished Japanese who was standing near me--he is a
+Christian--how many of the educated people in the assembly believed
+that the gods had descended. His answer was, "I may not believe that
+the gods of a truth descended, but I find something beautiful in
+calling on the gods with a harp of Old Japan, and I do believe that
+our humble and natural offering to-day may be acceptable to whatever
+gods there may be and that it is a worthy exercise for us to undertake
+and may also be conducive to a good harvest." My friend attempted the
+following rough rendering of a song which had been sung by the rice
+planters before the shrine:
+
+This day the beginning of sowing at an auspicious time--
+Long life to the rice!
+May it be a token of the years of the Reign,
+The seed of peace for the world--
+May it start from this consecrated field!
+One in heart we see to it that our seedlings are well matched.
+Mikawa's[83] millennium and the millennium of rice.
+Let us pray for an abundant shooting.
+Now let us plant the seedlings straight;
+Pleasing to the gods are the ways that are not crooked.
+
+After this ceremony, in which the staple crop of the country and the
+labour of the farmer in his paddy field had been honoured by the State
+and dignified by ancestral blessings, there was luncheon in one of
+those deftly contrived reed-covered structures, of the building of
+which the Japanese have the knack, and the Governor asked some of us
+to say a few words. Then on a raised platform in the open there was
+enacted a comic interlude such as might have been seen in England in
+the Middle Ages. In the evening I was bidden to a dinner of the
+officials responsible for the day's doings. The Governor made a kindly
+reference to my labours and the local M.P. presented me with a kimono
+length of the cotton material which had been woven for the planters of
+the sacred rice.
+
+
+III[84]
+
+The production of rice has increased more quickly than the growth of
+the population. If we consider, along with the advance in population,
+the crops of the years 1882 and 1913, which were held to be average,
+and, in order to be as up-to-date as possible, the normal annual
+yield[85] of the five-years period 1912-18, we find that, as between
+1882 and 1913, the population increased 45 per cent. and rice
+production increased 63 per cent., while as between 1882 and the
+normal annual yield period of 1912-18, the population increased 55 per
+cent, and the crop 75 per cent.[86]
+
+This is a noteworthy fact. But equally noteworthy is the fact that in
+the 1882-1913 period, in which the production of rice increased 63 per
+cent. and the population only 45 per cent., the price of rice did not
+fall. On the contrary it rose. This was due largely[87] to the fact
+that people had begun to eat rice who had not before been able to
+afford it. Many people who grow rice eat, as has been noted, barley or
+barley mixed with a little rice. From the 'eighties onwards more and
+more rice was eaten.[88]
+
+The reason was that, what with the cash obtained from cocoons through
+the enormous development of sericulture,[89] what with the money
+received by the girls who had gone to the factories, what with the
+growth of big cities causing an increased demand for vegetables, eggs
+and especially fruit at good prices, what with the use of better seed
+and more artificial manure, what with agricultural co-operation,
+paddy-field adjustment and the taking-in of new land, the farmer, in
+spite of increased taxation,[90] was doing better, or at any rate was
+minded to live better. In the thirty-years period 1882-1913, his crop
+increased 63 per cent. although his area under cultivation increased
+by only 17 per cent. In the following pages we shall hear more of the
+methods by which the farmer's receipts have been increased. We shall
+hear also, alas! of the ways in which his expenditure has increased.
+He is indeed in a trying situation. Everything depends on his
+character and education and on the influences, social and political,
+moral and religious, under which he lives. That is why this book, in
+devoting itself to an examination of the foundations of an
+agricultural country, is concerned with rural sociology rather than
+with the technique of crops and cropping.
+
+The outstanding problem of the rice grower is fluctuations in
+price.[91] It is also the problem of the landlord, for rents are fixed
+not at so much money but at so many _koku_ of rice. This means that
+on rent day the farmer must pay the same amount of rice whether his
+crop has been good or bad. It also means that when the price of rice
+rises the amount of rent is automatically raised. If rent were paid,
+not in so many _koku_ of rice but in money at a fixed amount, the
+landlord would know where he was and the tenant would be in an easier
+position, for when the rice crop failed the price would be high and he
+would be able to meet his rent by selling a smaller amount of rice.
+The counsel of the prudent to the rice producer is to build
+storehouses and not to sell the whole of his crop immediately after
+harvest, but to extend the sale over the whole year, marketing each
+month about the same amount if possible. The Government Granary plan
+came into force in 1921, some 3 million _koku_ of unpolished rice
+being bought in five grades at from 27 yen to 33 yen. In the year
+before the War rice was selling at 20 yen per _koku_ (5 bushels). The
+previous year (1912) it had been 21 yen--had risen at times to 23
+yen--an unheard-of price. Between 1894 and 1912 it had climbed merely
+from about 7 yen to a maximum of 16 yen.[92] In the year in which the
+War broke out, it dropped as low as 12 yen, and in 1915 it was only 11
+yen. By 1916 it had not risen beyond 14 yen.
+
+The fall in prices was due to exceptional harvests in 1914 and 1915
+(that is, 57,006,541 _koku_ and 55,924,590 _koku_ as compared with the
+50,255,000 _koku_ of the year before the War, or the 51,312,000 which
+may be taken as the average of the seven-years period 1907-13). Such
+exceptional harvests as those of 1914 and 1915 showed a surplus of
+from 4½ to 6 million _koku_ over and above the needs of the country,
+which are roughly estimated at 1 _koku_ per head including infants and
+the old and feeble. In 1916 it was established, when account was taken
+of stored rice, that the actual surplus was something like 6 or 7
+million _koku_. Therefore a fall in price took place. The extent to
+which rice is imported and exported is shown in Appendix XXIV. This
+Chapter would become much more technical than is necessary if I
+entered into the question of the correctness of rice statistics.
+Roughly, the statistics show a production 15 per cent. less than the
+actual crops. Formerly the under-estimation was 20 per cent. The
+practice has its origin in the old taxation system.
+
+The notes for the account of rural life in Japan which will be found
+in this book were chiefly made in the second and third years of the
+War. Since that time there has been an enormous rise in the price of
+everything. For a time the farmers prospered as they had prospered in
+the high rice-price years, 1912-13.[93] The high prices of all grain
+as well as the fabulous price of raw silk (due to increased export to
+America and to increased home consumption) were a great advantage.
+
+[Illustration: MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE'S EFFORTS TO KEEP THE PRICE OF RICE
+FROM RISING]
+
+Then came the rice riots of the city workers, the general slump and
+finally the commercial and industrial crash. Raw silk fell nearly to
+one-third of its top price, and farmers had to sell cocoons under the
+cost of production. Everywhere countrymen and countrywomen employed in
+the factories were discharged in droves. A large proportion of these
+unfortunates returned to their villages to dispel some rural dreams of
+urban Eldorado.
+
+But this matter of the going up and coming down of prices has but a
+passing interest for the reader. The only economic fact of which he
+need lay hold is that in recent years the farmers have been led into
+the way of spending more money--in taxation as well as in general
+expenses of living--and that, when account is taken of every advantage
+they have gained from better methods of production, they have pressing
+on them the limitations imposed by the size of their farms and their
+farming practice. Whatever the prices obtained for the: products of
+the soil, climatic facts,[94] the character and social condition of
+the people, their attitude towards life and authority and the attitude
+of authority towards them remain very much the same. And thus a
+narrative of things seen and heard chiefly during the first years of
+the War is not at all out of date even if it were not supplemented as
+it is by a plentiful supply of notes containing the latest statistical
+data.
+
+There is one curious exception only. The reader of these pages will
+constantly come on references to the poverty of the tenant farmers.
+They are, of course, practically labourers, for they cultivate two or
+three acres only, and at the end of the year, as has been shown, have
+merely a trifle in hand and sometimes not that. Influenced by the
+labour movement, which developed in the industrial centres during and
+after the War,[95] this depressed class has of late shown spirit. It
+has begun to assert its claims against landowners. At the end of 1920
+there were as many as ninety associations of tenant farmers, and sixty
+of these had been started for the specific purpose of representing
+tenants' interests against landowners. Strikes of tenants began and
+continue. The end of this movement of a proverbially conservative
+class is not at all certain.[96]
+
+The outstanding facts which are to be borne in mind about agricultural
+Japan are that the population is as thick on the ground as the
+population of the British Isles (thicker in reality, for so much of
+Japan is mountain and waste)--ten times thicker than the population of
+the United States[97]--that Japan is primarily an agricultural
+country, while Great Britain is largely a manufacturing and trading
+country, and that only 15½ per cent. of Japan proper (including
+Hokkaido) is under cultivation against 27 per cent. in Great
+Britain.[98] The average area cultivated per farming family in Japan,
+counting paddy and upland together, is less than 3 acres. As the total
+population of Japan is now (1921) 56 millions (55,960,150 in 1920,
+plus the annual increase of 600,000), every acre has to feed close on
+four persons. ("Even in Hokkaido," Dr. Sato notes, "the average area
+per family is only 7½ acres.") Happily the number of families
+cultivating less than 1¼ acres is decreasing and the number
+cultivating from 1¼ up to 5 acres is increasing.[99] In other words,
+the favourite size of farm is one which finds work for all the members
+of the farmer's family. As on small holdings all over the world, it is
+found that profits are difficult to make when help has to be paid for.
+The facts that in the last four years for which figures are available
+the number of farming families keeping silk-worms has risen by half a
+million and that every year the area of land under cultivation
+increases show that new ways of increasing income are eagerly seized
+on.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[80] For estimate of daily consumption of rice by Japanese, see
+Appendix XXIII.
+
+[81] For statistics of imported and exported rice, see Appendix XXIV.
+
+[82] Japanese. I was the only foreigner present.
+
+[83] The old name for a considerable part of Aichi
+
+[84] This section of the chapter was written in 1921.
+
+[85] For the way in which "normal yield" is arrived at, see p. 70.
+
+[86] See Appendix XXV.
+
+[87] War with China, 1894; with Russia, 1904.
+
+[88] For farmers' diet, see Appendix XXVI.
+
+[89] Farmers in sericultural districts live better than the ordinary
+rice farmers.
+
+[90] See Appendix XXVII.
+
+[91] See Appendix XXVIII.
+
+[92] For prices, see Appendix XVII.
+
+[93] The rise in prices towards the close of the War, with the rise in
+the cost of living throughout the world, has been discussed on page
+xxv.
+
+[94] See Appendix XXIX.
+
+[95] See Chapter XX.
+
+[96] Recent figures show 400 tenants' associations, of which a third
+are militant.
+
+[97] See Appendix XXX and page 97.
+
+[98] See Chapter XX.
+
+[99] See Appendix XXXI.
+
+
+
+
+BACK TO FIRST PRINCIPLES: THE APOSTLE
+AND THE ARTIST
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A TROUBLER OF ISRAEL
+
+The signification of this gift of life, that we should leave a better
+world for our successors, is being understood.--MEREDITH
+
+
+To some people in Japan the countryman Kanzō Uchimura is "the Japanese
+Carlyle." To others he is a religious enthusiast and the Japanese
+equivalent of a troubler of Israel. He appeared to me in the guise of
+a student of rural sociology.
+
+Uchimura is the man who as a school teacher "refused to bow before the
+Emperor's portrait."[100] He endured, as was to be expected, social
+ostracism and straitened means. But when his voice came to be heard in
+journalism it was recognised as the voice of a man of principle by
+people who heard it far from gladly. There is a seamy side to some
+Japanese journalism[101] and Uchimura soon resigned his editorial
+chair. He abandoned a second editorship because he was determined to
+brave the displeasure of his countrymen by opposing the war with
+Russia. To-day he deplores many things in the relations of Japan and
+China.
+
+[Illustration: _Fuhei_
+MUZZLED EDITORS]
+
+Uchimura has written more than two dozen books, mostly on religion.
+_How I became a Christian_ has been translated into English, German,
+Danish, Russian and Chinese, and is to that extent a landmark in the
+literary history of Japan. His Christianity is an Early Christianity
+which places him in antagonism, not only to his own countrymen who are
+Shintoists, Buddhists or Confucians, or vaguely Nationalists, but to
+such foreign missionaries as are sectarians and literalists. His
+earliest training was in agricultural science, and the welfare of the
+Japanese countryside is near his heart. If he be a Carlyle, as his
+fibre and resolution, downright way of writing and speaking, hortatory
+gift, humour, plainness of life and dislike of officials, no less than
+his cast of countenance, his soft hat and long gaberdine-like coat
+have suggested, he is a Carlyle who is content to stay both in body
+and mind at Ecclefechan. He is not, however, like Carlyle, whom he
+calls "master," a peasant, but a samurai.
+
+"As you penetrate into the lives of the farmers and discover the
+influences brought to bear on them," Uchimura said to me in his
+decisive way, "there will be laid bare to you _the foundations of
+Japan_. You know our proverb, of course, _No wa kuni no taihon nari_
+('Agriculture is the basis of a nation')? Have you been to Nikko?"
+This seemed a little inconsequent, but I told him I had not yet been
+to Nikko. ("Until you have seen Nikko," runs the adage, "do not say
+'splendid'.") "How many of the tourists who are delighted with Nikko,"
+he went on, "have heard how the richest farms near that town were
+devastated? A century ago a minister of the Shogun, who realised that
+fertility depended on trees, saw to the whole range of Nikko hills
+being afforested. It was a tract twenty miles by twenty miles in
+extent. But the 'civilised' authorities of our own days sold all the
+timber to a copper company for 8,000 yen. The company destroyed the
+fertility of the district not only by cutting down the forest but by
+poisoning the water with which the farmers irrigated their crops. A
+member of Parliament gave himself with such devotion to the cause of
+the ruined farmers that when he died the ashes of his cremated body
+were divided and preserved in four shrines erected to his memory."
+
+It was a sad thing, said Uchimura, that the farmers of Japan, because
+of the decreased fertility of the land due to the denudation of the
+hills of trees, and because of their increased expenses, should be
+laying out "a quarter of their incomes on artificial manures." "The
+enemies which Japan has most to fear to-day," Uchimura declared, "are
+impaired fertility and floods."
+
+It may be well, perhaps, to explain for a few readers how floods do
+their ill work. The rain which falls on treeless mountains is not
+absorbed there. The water washes down the mountain sides, bringing
+with it first good soil and then subsoil, stones and rock. The hills
+eventually become those peaked deserts the queer look of which must
+have puzzled many students of Japanese pictures. The debris washed
+away is carried into the rivers, along with trees from the lower
+slopes, and the level of the river beds is raised. Because there is
+less space in the river beds for water the rivers overflow their
+banks, and disastrous floods take place. The farmers, the local
+authorities and the State raise embankments higher and higher, but
+embankment building is costly and cannot go on indefinitely. The real
+remedy is to decrease the supply of water by planting forests in the
+mountains[102]. In many places the rivers are flowing above the level
+of the surrounding country. The imagination is caught by the fact that
+there are four earthquakes a day in Japan[103] and that within a
+twelvemonth fires destroy 400 acres or so of buildings; but every
+year, on an average, floods, tidal waves and typhoons together drown
+more than 600 people and cause a money loss of 25 million yen! Every
+year 10½ million yen are spent by the State and the prefectures on
+river control alone.
+
+Uchimura put on his famous wideawake and we went out for a walk. "I
+should like," he said, "to press the view that the vaunted expansion
+of Japan has meant to the farmers an increase of prices and taxes and
+of armaments out of all proportion to our population[104]."
+
+Uchimura stood stock still in the little wood we had entered. "There
+is one thing more," he added gravely. "Before you can get deeply into
+your subject you must touch religion. There you see the depths of the
+people. A large part of the deterioration of the countryside is due to
+the deterioration of Buddhism. You must ask about it. You will see in
+the villages much of what your old writers used to call 'priestcraft.'
+You will hear of the thraldom of many of the people. You will see with
+your own eyes that real Christianity may be a moral bath for a rural
+district."
+
+"The essentials, not the forms of Christianity," he declared, would
+save the countryside by "brotherly union." "Brotherly union" would
+make a better life and a better agriculture. The rural class, he
+explained, was more sharply divided than foreigners understood into
+owners of land who lived on their rents and farmers who farmed[105].
+The division between the two classes was "as great as an Indian caste
+division." "To the landowner who lives in his village like a feudal
+lord the simple Gospel, with its insistence on the sacredness of work,
+comes as an intellectual revolution." Women as well as men of means
+received from Christianity "a new conception of humanity." They ceased
+to "look upon their own glory and to take delight in the flattery of
+poor people." They changed their way of speaking to the peasants. They
+developed an interest, of which they knew nothing before, in the
+spiritual and material betterment of the men, women and children of
+their village.
+
+I went a two-days journey into the country with Uchimura. We stayed at
+the house of a landowner who was one of his adherents. I found myself
+in a large room where two swallows were flitting, intent on building
+on a beam which yearly bore a nest. In this room stood a shrine
+containing the ancestral tablets. The daily offerings were no longer
+made, but Uchimura's counsel, unlike that of some zealots, was to
+preserve not only this shrine but the large family shrine in the
+courtyard. Near by was an engraving of Luther.
+
+[Illustration: "THE JAPANESE CARLYLE."]
+
+[Illustration: MR. AND MRS. YANAGI.]
+
+Uchimura spoke in the house to some thirty or more "people of the
+district who had accepted Christianity." His appeal was to "live
+Christianity as given to the world by its founder." The address, which
+was delivered from an arm-chair, was based on the fifth chapter of
+Matthew, which in the preacher's copy appeared to contain
+cross-references to two disciples called Tolstoy and Carlyle. When I
+was asked to speak I found that the women in the gathering had places
+in front. "The remarkable effect of Christianity among those who
+have come to think with us," Uchimura told me afterwards, "is seen
+most in their treatment of women. Our host, had he not been a
+Christian, would have been credited by public opinion with the
+possession of a concubine, and would not have been blamed for it."
+When, after the speaking, we knelt in a circle and talked less
+formally of how best to benefit rural people, we were joined by the
+women folk. Later, when a dozen of the neighbours were invited to
+dinner, it was not served at separate tables for each kneeling guest,
+but at one long table, an innovation "to indicate the brotherly
+relation."
+
+[Illustration: CHILDREN CATCHING INSECTS ON RICE-SEED BEDS]
+
+[Illustration: MASTERS OF A COUNTRY SCHOOL AND SOME OF THE CHILDREN.]
+
+"So you see," said Uchimura, as we walked to the station in the
+morning, "in an antiquated book, which, I suppose, stands dusty on the
+shelves of some of your reformers, there is power to achieve the very
+things they aim at." He went on to explain that he looked "in the
+lives of hearers, not in what they say," for results from his
+teaching. He believed in liberty and freedom, in sowing the seed of
+change and reform and allowing people to develop as they would. "Let
+men and women believe as they have light."
+
+He spoke in his kindly way of how "the bond of a common faith enables
+Japanese to get closer to the foreigner and the foreigner closer to
+the Japanese." There were many things we foreigners did not
+understand. We did not understand, for example, that "A man's a man
+for a' that" was an unfamiliar conception to a Japanese. I was to
+remember, when I interrogated Japanese about the problems of rural
+life, that they had had to coin a word for "problems." Above all, I
+must be careful not to "exaggerate the quality of Eastern morality."
+Uchimura asserted sweepingly that "morality in the Anglo-Saxon sense
+is not found in Japan." We of the West underrated the value of the
+part played by the Puritans in our development. Our moral life had
+been evolved by the soul-stirring power of the Hebrew prophets and of
+Christ. To deny this was "kicking your own mother." Just as it was not
+possible for the Briton or American to get his present morality from
+Greece and Rome exclusively, it was not possible for the Japanese to
+obtain it from the sources at his disposal.
+
+The faults of the Eastern were that he thought too much of outward
+conduct. Good political and neighbourly-relations, kindliness, honesty
+and thrift were his idea of morality. "To love goodness and to hate
+evil with one's whole soul is a Christian conception for which you may
+search in vain through heathendom." The horror which the Western man
+of high character felt when he thought of the future of the little
+girls in attendance on geisha was not a horror generated by Plato.
+"Heathen life looks nice on the outside to foreigners," but
+Confucianism, Buddhism and Shintoism had all been weak in their
+attitude towards immorality. It was Christianity alone which
+controlled sexual life. Without deep-seated love of and joy in
+goodness and deep-seated horror of evil it was impossible to reform
+society.
+
+Uchimura said that it had taken him thirty years to reach the
+conviction that the best way of raising his countrymen was by
+preaching the religion of "a despised foreign peasant." Many things he
+had been told by exponents of Christianity now seemed "very strange,"
+but there remained in the first four books of the New Testament, in
+the essence of Christianity, principles "which would give new life to
+all men." Moved by this belief, Uchimura and his friends gave their
+lives to the work of the Gospel, to a work attended by humiliations;
+"but this is our glory."
+
+Japanese civilisation, he reiterated, was "only good in the sense that
+Greek and Roman civilisations were good." Modern Japan represented
+"the best of Europe minus Christianity; the moral backbone of
+Christianity is lacking." "Probe a dozen Buddhist priests in turn," he
+said, "and you find something lacking; you don't find the Buddhist or
+Confucian really to be your brother[106]."
+
+"The greatness of England," he went on, "is not due to the inherent
+greatness of the English people, but to the greatness of the truths
+which they have received." In considering the sources of national
+greatness, it was idle to believe that some peoples were original and
+some not original in their ideas and methods. Where were the people to
+be found who were without extraneous influence? Where would England be
+without Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Christianity?
+
+Our talk broke off as several peasant women passed us on the narrow
+way by the rice fields. The mattocks they carried were the same weight
+as their husbands' mattocks and the women were going to do the same
+work as the men. But the women were nearly all handicapped by having a
+child tied on their backs. Uchimura, returning to his objection to
+foreign political adventure, said that Japan, properly cultivated,
+could support twice its present population. There were many marshy
+districts which could be brought into cultivation by drainage. Then
+what might not forestry do? But the progress could not be made because
+of lack of money. The money was needed for "national defence."
+
+"For myself," said Uchimura, "I find it still possible to believe in
+some power which will take care of inoffensive, quiet, humble,
+industrious people. If all the high virtues of mankind are not
+safeguarded somehow, then let us take leave of all the ennobling
+aspirations, all the poetry, and all the deepest hopes we have, and
+cease to struggle upward. The question is whether we have faith." We
+still waited, he declared, for the nation which would be Christian
+enough to take its stand on the Gospel and sacrifice itself
+materially, if need be, to its faith that right was greater than
+might.
+
+And so "impractical, outspoken to rashness, but thoroughly sincere and
+experienced," as one of his appreciative countrymen characterised him
+to me, we take leave of the "Japanese Carlyle." With whom could I have
+gone more provocatively towards the foundation of things at the
+beginning of my investigation in farther Japan?
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[100] The statement is, he told me, a calumny. He explained that he
+lost his post for refusing to bow, not to the portrait, but to the
+signature of the Emperor, the signature appended to that famous
+Imperial rescript on education which is appointed to be read in
+schools. Uchimura is very willing, he said, to show the respect which
+loyal Japanese are at all times ready to manifest to the Emperor, and
+he would certainly bow before the portrait of His Majesty; but in the
+proposal that reverence should be paid to the Imperial autograph he
+thought he saw the demands of a "Kaiserism"--his word, he speaks
+vigorous English--which was foreign to the Japanese conception of
+their sovereign, which would be inimical to the Emperor's influence
+and would be bad for the nation.
+
+[101] But journalism is one of the most powerful influences for good,
+and some of the best brains of the country is represented in it.
+Papers like the _Jiji, Asahi, Nichi Nichi_, and the Osaka papers run
+in conjunction with them have altogether a circulation approaching two
+millions.
+
+[102] For statistics of forests, see Appendix XXXII.
+
+[103] A severe shook occurs on an average about every six years. The
+eminent seismologist, Professor Omori, told me that he does not expect
+an earthquake of a dangerous sort for a generation.
+
+[104] The _Oriental Economist_, a Japanese publication, in the autumn
+of 1921 suggested the abandonment of all the extensions to the Empire
+on the score that they had not been a benefit to Japan, and that she
+was in no way dependent on them. See also Appendix XXXIII.
+
+[105] See Appendix XXXIV.
+
+[106] What of the old story which I have heard from Uchimura and
+others of the Confucian missionary to certain head hunters of Formosa?
+After many years of labour among them they promised to give up head
+hunting if they might take just one more head. At last the good man
+yielded, and told them that a Chinaman in a red robe was coming
+towards the village the next day and his head might be taken. On the
+morrow the men lay in wait for the stranger, sprang on him and cut off
+his head, only to find that it was the head of their beloved
+missionary. Struck with remorse and realising the evil of head taking,
+the tribe gave up head hunting for ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE IDEA OF A GAP
+
+Bold is the donkey driver, O Khedive, and bold is the Khedive who
+dares to say what he will believe, not knowing in any wise the mind of
+Allah, not knowing in any wise his own heart.
+
+
+The "Japanese Carlyle" is getting grey. It seemed well to seek out
+some young Japanese thinker and take his view of that "heathenism"
+concerning which Uchimura had delivered himself so unsparingly. Let me
+speak of my first visit to my friend Yanagi.
+
+As a youth Yanagi was a lonely student. He took his own way to
+knowledge and religion. The famed General Nogi had been given by the
+Emperor the direction of the Peers' School, but even under such
+distinguished tutelage the stripling made his stand. His reading led
+him to write for the school magazine an anti-militarist article. The
+veteran, as I once learned from a friend of Yanagi, promptly paraded
+the school, boys and masters. He spoke of disloyal, immoral,
+subversive ideas, and bade the youthful disturber of the peace attend
+him at his own house. When Yanagi stood before Nogi and was asked what
+he had to say, he replied with the question, "Don't you feel pain
+because of sending so many men to death before Port Arthur[107]?"
+
+Again I found my prophet in a cottage. It was a cottage overlooking
+rice fields and a lagoon. From the Japanese scene outdoors I passed
+indoors to a new Japan. Cezanne, Puvis de Chavannes, Beardsley, Van
+Gogh, Henry Lamb, Augustus John, Matisse and Blake--Yanagi has written
+a big book on Blake which is in a second edition--hung within sight
+of a grand piano and a fine collection of European music[108].
+Chinese, Korean and Japanese pottery and paintings filled the places
+in the dwelling not occupied by Western pictures and the Western
+library of a man well advanced with an interpretative history of
+Eastern and Western mysticism. An armful of books about Blake and
+Boehme, all Swedenborg, all Carlyle, all Emerson, all Whitman, all
+Shelley, all Maeterlinck, all Francis Thompson, and all Tagore, and
+plenty of other complete editions; early Christian mystics; much of
+William Law, Bergson, Eucken, Caird, James, Haldane, Bertrand Russell,
+Jefferies, Havelock Ellis, Carpenter, Strindberg, "Æ," Yeats, Synge
+and Shaw; not a little poetry of the fashion of Vaughan, Traherne and
+Crashaw; a well-thumbed Emily Brontë; all the great Russian novelists;
+numbers of books on art and artists--it was an arresting collection to
+come on in a Japanese hamlet, and odd to sit down beside it in order
+to talk of "heathen."
+
+"Yes," said Yanagi--he speaks an English which reflects his wide
+reading--"our young maid, on being shown the full moon the other
+night, bowed her head. I find this natural instinct of some value. Our
+people have much natural feeling towards Nature. If modern Japanese
+art has degenerated it is because it does not sufficiently find out
+life in things. The sough of the wind in the trees may have only a
+slight influence on character, but it is a vital influence. I do not
+like, of course, the word 'heathendom' of which Uchimura seems so
+fond. I dearly admire Christ, but most of the Christianity of to-day
+is not Christ. It is largely Paul. It is a mixture. It is not the
+clear, pure, original thing. Christians must reform their Christianity
+before it can satisfy us. In the East we now see clearly enough to
+seek only the best that the West can offer."
+
+Yanagi said that the spontaneity and naturalness of Eastern religions
+ought to be recognised. "You will find Christians admiring Walt
+Whitman, but it is Whitman the democrat they admire, not Whitman the
+prophet of naturalness." He spoke with appreciation of the Zen sect
+of Buddhists. Many of the Zen devotees were "noble and had a profound
+idea." He was unable to see "any difference at all" between the best
+part of Buddhism and the best part of Christianity. He said that his
+own mysticism was based on science, art, religion and philosophy. "My
+sincerest wish," he declared, "is to produce a beautiful
+reconciliation of these four. As it is, too often scientists and
+philosophers have no deep knowledge of religion or art, artists have
+no deep knowledge of religion or science, and the religious have no
+idea of art. Surely the deepest religious idea is the deepest artistic
+and philosophic idea. Perhaps our scientists are in the poorest state
+just now with no understanding of art or religion. Our scientists are
+immersed in the problem of matter, our religious people in the problem
+of spirit, and our artists forget that in dealing with nature they are
+dealing with spirit as well as body."
+
+Faced by force and science when Commander Perry came, Japan, in order
+to save herself from foreign colonisation, had had to concentrate all
+her attention on force and science. She had concentrated her attention
+with signal success. But naturally she had had, in the process, to
+slacken her hold somewhat on the spiritual life.
+
+"Always remember how difficult the Japanese find it to know which way
+to take. Their whole basis has been shaken and on the surface all has
+become chaotic. Ten years hence it will be possible to take a just
+view. There is much reason for high hopes. For one thing, the burden
+of old thought does not rest so heavily on us as might be supposed. We
+are very free in many ways. In the matter of religion Japan is the
+most free nation in the world. If England were to become Buddhist it
+would sound strange or exotic, but Japan is free to become what she
+may."
+
+"There may be a great difference between one of our temples and
+shrines and an English church," Yanagi proceeded, "but I cannot
+believe in the gap which some people seem to see yawning between East
+and West. It is deplorable that the world should think that there is
+such a complete difference between East and West. It is usually said
+that self-denial, asceticism, sacrifice, negation are opposed to
+self-affirmation, individualism, self-realisation; but I do not
+believe in such a gap. I wish to destroy the idea of a gap. It is an
+idea which was obtained analytically. The meeting of East and West
+will not be upon a bridge over a gap, but upon the destruction of the
+idea of a gap.
+
+"In future, religion cannot be limited by this or that sect or idea.
+Religion cannot be limited to Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism or
+Mahomedanism. Uchimura says that it is the essence of Christianity
+which has the power to rescue Japan from its chaotic state. But the
+essence of Buddhism can also contribute some important element to the
+future of Japan. The notion that the essence of Christianity and the
+essence of Buddhism are far apart is artificial and prejudiced."
+
+One day some weeks later I walked with Yanagi on the hills. He said:
+"The weakest point in the Japanese character is the lack of the power
+of questioning. We are repressed by our educational system. And so
+many things come here at one time that it makes confusion. What is so
+often taken for a lack of originality in us is a state resulting from
+an immense importation of foreign ideas. They have been overpowering.
+Many of us have no clear ideas on life, society, sex and so on, and
+you will find it difficult to get satisfactory answers to many
+questions which you will want to ask."
+
+As to morality, it was dangerous to say "this or that is immoral."
+Morality was often merely custom. Ordinary morality had scant
+authority. Critics of Japanese morality should not forget that, in the
+opinion of Japanese, Western people were more erotic than they were.
+Western dancing--not to speak of Western women's evening costumes--was
+undoubtedly more erotic than Japanese dancing. Again, the sexual
+curiosity of foreigners seemed stronger than that manifested by
+Japanese. It was a well-known fact that the girls at many hotels and
+restaurants had not a little to complain of from foreign men who
+misjudged their naïve ways. It must be remembered that Japanese were
+franker in sexual matters than Europeans and Americans. Sexual
+ill-doing was not so much concealed as in Europe. A wrong impression
+of Japanese morality was taken away by tourists whose guides showed
+them, as in Paris, what they expected to see.
+
+"I wonder," he said, "that Western visitors to Tokyo who talk of our
+immorality are not struck by the fact that in an Eastern capital a
+foreign lady may walk home at night and be practically safe from being
+spoken to. The Japanese are undoubtedly a very kind people. They may
+be unmoral, but they are not immoral."
+
+"Most of our people do not understand liberty in the mental sexual
+relations. Love is not free. In a very large proportion of cases,
+indeed, parents would oppose a match because a son or daughter had
+fallen in love. And if it is difficult to marry for love it is not
+easy to fall in love.[109] Society in which young men and young women
+meet is restricted; there are few opportunities of conversation.
+Without liberty towards women there can be no perfect sense of
+responsibility towards them."
+
+What had been taught to women as the supreme virtue was the virtue of
+sacrifice for father, husband, children. It was most important to let
+women know the significance of individualism. They were always
+offering themselves for others before they became themselves. But the
+idea of individuality was very little clearer to the Japanese man than
+to the Japanese woman. People were too prone to wish to give 100 yen
+before they had 100 yen. The Japanese were the most devotional people
+in the world, but they hardly knew yet the things to be devoted to.
+
+Yanagi is a leading member of a small association of literary men,
+artists and students who graduated together from the Peers' School.
+They call themselves for no obvious reason the Shirakaba or Silver
+Birch Society. The intelligent and consistent efforts of these young
+men to introduce vital Western work in literature, philosophy,
+painting, sculpture, draughtsmanship and music, and the large measure
+of success they have attained is of some significance. Several members
+of the group belong to the old Kuge families, that is the ancient
+nobility which surrounded the Emperor at Kyoto before the
+Restoration. Cut off for centuries from military and administrative
+activities by the dominance of the Shogunate Government, the Kuge
+devoted themselves to the arts and the refinements of life. For the
+exclusiveness of the past some of their descendants substitute
+artistic integrity. The Shirakaba has had for several years a
+remarkable magazine. Its editor and its publisher, its size, its price
+and its date of publication are continually changed; it never makes
+any bid for popularity; it expresses its sentiments in a downright way
+and it has always been anti-official: yet it survives and pays its
+way. Beyond the magazine, the Society has had every year at least one
+exhibition of what its members conceive to be significant modern
+European work. The members have also supported a few Japanese artists
+of outstanding sincerity. Through the Shirakaba the influence of
+Cezanne, Van Gogh, Rodin, Blake, Delacroix, Matisse, Augustus John,
+Beardsley, Courbet, Daumier, Maillol, Chavannes and Millet,
+particularly Cezanne, Van Gogh, Rodin and Blake, has been marked. The
+Silver Birch group has never tired of extolling the great names of
+Rembrandt, Dürer, El Greco, Van Eyck, Goya, Leonardo, Michael Angelo,
+Tintoretto, Giotto and Mantegna[110].
+
+While an ardent Young Japan has formed and dissolved many societies,
+movements and fashions, this Shirakaba group has held fast and has
+gained friends by its sincerity, its vision and its audacity[111].
+Rodin encouraged the Shirakaba efforts to reproduce the best Western
+art by presenting it with three pieces of sculpture.
+
+"The intellectual man does no fighting," Froude has written. Why do
+not Yanagi and his friends make a stand on public questions?
+"Because," he said, "at the present stage of our development it is
+almost impossible to take up a strong attitude, and because, important
+though political and social questions are, they are not, in our
+opinion, of the first importance. To artists, philosophers, students
+of religion, such problems are secondary. More important problems are:
+What is the meaning of this world? What is God? What is the essence of
+religion? How can we best nourish ourselves so as to realise our own
+personalities? Political and social problems are secondary for us at
+present; they are not related emotionally to our present
+conditions[112].
+
+        For the East the Root,
+        For the West the Fruit.
+
+"If we faced such problems directly we should probably make them
+primary problems, as you do in Great Britain. Our present attitude
+does not prove, however, that we are cold to political and social
+problems. In fact, when we think of these terrible political and
+social questions they make us boil. But you will understand that in
+order to have something to give to others, we must have that
+something. We are seeking after that something."
+
+Yanagi, continuing, spoke of the direct contribution which the new
+artistic movement in Japan, under the influence of modern Western art,
+was making to the solution of political and social questions[113]. The
+interest of the younger generation in Post Impressionism was "quite
+disharmonious with the ordinary attitude towards militarism."
+European art broke down barriers in the Japanese mind. When the
+younger generation, nourished on higher ideals, grew up, it would be
+the State, and there would be a more hopeful condition of affairs.
+People generally supposed that social questions were the most
+practical; but religious, artistic, philosophic questions were, in the
+truest sense of the word, the most practical.
+
+Yanagi went on to tell of his devotion to Blake. He could not
+understand "why Englishmen are so cool to him." He asked me how it was
+that there was no word about Blake in Andrew Lang's work on English
+literature. "I cannot imagine," he said, "why such an intelligent man
+could not appreciate Blake." Yanagi regarded Blake as "the artist of
+immense will, of immense desire, and a man in whom can be seen that
+affirmative attitude towards life, exhibited later by Whitman." Yanagi
+spoke also of "Anglo-Saxon nobility, liberty, depth of character and
+healthiness," and of "a deep and noble character" in English
+literature which he did not find elsewhere. Whitman, Emerson, Poe and
+William James were "the crown of America."
+
+As I close this chapter I recall Yanagi's library, in the service of
+which, bettering Mark Pattison's example, two-thirds of its owner's
+income was for some time expended. I remember the thatched dwelling
+overlooking the quiet reed-bound lagoon with its frosty sunrises, red
+moonrises and apparitions of Fuji above the clouds seventy miles away.
+No Western visitor whom I took to Abiko failed to be moved by that
+room, designed by Yanagi himself in every detail, wherein East meets
+West in harmony. I have made note of his Western books but not of the
+classics and strange mystic writings of Chinese and Korean priests in
+piles of thin volumes in soft bindings of blue or brown. I have not
+mentioned a Rembrandt drawing and next to it the vigorous but restful
+brush lines of an artist priest of the century that brought Buddhism
+to Japan; severe little gilt-bronze figures of deities from China, a
+little older; pottery figures of exquisite beauty from the tombs of
+Tang, a little later; Sung pottery, a dynasty farther on; Korai
+celadons from Korean tombs of the same epoch; and whites and blue and
+whites of Ming and Korean Richo. On the wall a black and yellow tiger
+is "burning bright" on a strip of blood-red silk tapestry woven on a
+Chinese loom for a Taoist priest 500 years ago. Cimabue's portrait of
+St. Francis breathes over Yanagi's writing desk from one side, while
+from the other Blake's amazing life mask looks down "with its Egyptian
+power of form added to the intensity of Western individualism." These
+are Yanagi's silent friends. His less quiet friends of the flesh have
+felt that this room was a sanctuary and Yanagi a priest of eternal
+things, but a priest without priestcraft, a priest living joyously in
+the world. Above his desk is inscribed the line of Blake:
+
+        Thou also, dwellest in eternity
+
+and Kepler's aspiration, "My wish is that I may perceive God whom I
+find everywhere in the external world in like manner within and
+without me."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[107] One of the reasons assigned for the suicide of the General was
+thoughts of his responsibility for the terrible slaughter in the
+assaults on Port Arthur.
+
+[108] Mrs. Yanagi is one of the best contraltos heard at the now
+numerous Japanese concerts of Western music.
+
+[109] _Shinjū_, or suicide for love, the girl often being a geisha, is
+common.
+
+[110] "I am inclined to think," wrote Yanagi in 1921, in a paper on
+Korean art, "that we have paid if anything rather too much attention
+to European works while making little effort to pay attention to what
+lies much nearer to us."
+
+[111] POLICE STANDARDS.--The sale of one issue of the magazine was
+prohibited by the police, who found a nude "antagonistic to the
+ordinary standard of public morals." The editors' answer next
+month--the police standard being, "No front views"--was to publish
+half a dozen more nudes with their backs to the reader.
+
+[112] It will be remembered that this conversation took place in the
+summer of 1915 at the outset of my investigation. Since then, as noted
+throughout this book, economic questions have increasingly pressed
+themselves forward. I may mention that in 1919 Yanagi wrote a
+vigorous and moving protest against misgovernment in Korea. In a
+recent letter to me he says: "You know that I am going to establish a
+Korean Folk Art Society in Seoul. This is a big work, but I want to do
+it with all my power for love of Korea. I approach the solution of the
+Korean question by the way of Art. Politics can never solve the
+question. I want to use the gallery as a meeting-place of Koreans and
+Japanese. People cannot quarrel in beauty. This is my simple yet
+definite belief." Yanagi's manifesto on his project made one think of
+the age when the great culture of China and India glowed across the
+straits of Tsushima in the wake of early Buddhism.
+
+[113] A well-known member of the Shirakaba group started two years ago
+an "ideal village" among the mountains. It is an effort towards social
+freedom in which the police manifest a continuous interest.
+
+
+
+
+ACROSS JAPAN (TOKYO TO NIIGATA AND
+BACK)
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TO THE HILLS
+
+(TOKYO, SAITAMA, TOCHIGI AND FUKUSHIMA)
+
+Nothing which concerns a _countryman_ is a matter of unconcern to
+me.--TERENCE
+
+
+During the month of July I went from one side of Japan to the other,
+starting from Tokyo, across the sea from which lies America, and
+coming out at Niigata, across the sea from which lies Siberia.
+
+We first made a four hours' railway run through the great Kwanto plain
+(6,000 square miles). Travelling is comfortable on such a trip, for
+travellers take off their coats and waistcoats, and the train-boy--he
+has the word "Boy" on his collar in English--brings fans and bedroom
+slippers. The fans, which on one side advertised "Hotels in European
+style, directly managed by the Imperial Government Railway[114],"
+offered on the other a poem and a drawing. A poem addressed to a snail
+played with the idea of its giving its life to climbing Fuji. The poem
+was composed by a poet who wrote many delightful _hokku_
+(seventeen-syllable poems), showing a humorous sympathy with the
+humblest creatures. One poem is:
+
+        Come and play with me,
+        Thou orphan sparrow!
+
+Like Burns, Issa addressed a poem to a louse.
+
+As we climbed from the vicinity of the sea to higher lands someone
+recalled the saying about saints living in the mountains and sages by
+the sea. Speaking of religion, one man said that he had known of
+people giving half their income to religious purposes. He also
+mentioned that for some years his mother had gone to hear a sermon in
+a Japanese Christian church every Sunday, but she still served her
+Buddhist shrine.
+
+It was at an inn at the hot spring near the Mount Nasu volcano--the
+odour of the sulphurous hot water was everywhere in the district--that
+I first enjoyed the attentions of the blind _amma_ (_masseur_ or
+_masseuse_), the call of whose plaintive pipe is heard every evening
+in the smallest community. _Amma san_ rubbed and pommelled me for an
+hour for 28 sen. The _amma_ does not massage the skin, but works
+through the _yukata_ (bath gown) of the patient. I had my massaging as
+I knelt with the other guests of the inn at an entertainment arranged
+for the benefit of residents. The entertainers, professional and
+non-professional--the non-professionals were local farmers--knelt on a
+low platform or danced in front of it. They were extraordinarily able.
+A dramatic tale by one of the story-tellers was about a yokelish young
+wrestler and a daimyo. Another described the woes and suicide of an
+old-time Court lady.
+
+The next day we started on foot on a seven miles' climb of the
+volcano. Its lower slopes were covered with a variety of that
+knee-high bamboo with a creeping root, which is so troublesome to
+farmers when they break up new ground. One variety is said to blossom
+and fruit once in sixty years and then die. An ingenious professor has
+traced mice plagues to this habit. In the year in which the bamboo
+fruits the mice increase and multiply exceedingly. Suddenly their food
+supply gives out and they descend to the plains to live with the
+farmers.
+
+At length we came in sight of the smoke and vapour of the volcano.
+Soon we were near the top, where the white trunks and branches of dead
+trees and scrub, killed by falling ash or gusts of vapour, dotted an
+awesome desolation of calcined and fused stone and solidified mud. At
+the summit we looked down into the churning horror of the volcano's
+vat and at different spots saw the treacly sulphur pouring out,
+brilliant yellow with red streaks. The man to whom there first came
+the idea of hell and a prisoned revengeful power must surely have
+looked into a crater. In the throat of this crater there seethed and
+spluttered an ugliness that was scarlet, green, brown and yellow. The
+sound of the steam blowing off was like the roar of the sea. The air
+was stifling. It was very hot, and there was a high eerie wind.
+
+Adventurous men had built rude bulwarks of stone over some of the
+orifices, and in this way had compelled the volcano to furnish them
+with sulphur free from dirt. The production of sulphur in Japan is
+valued at close on three million yen.
+
+As we went on our journey we spoke of the sturdiness and cheeriness of
+our chief carrier, who had told us that he was seventy. I asked him if
+he thought it fair that he should have to walk so far on a hot day
+with so much to carry while we were empty-handed. He replied that it
+might appear to be unjust, but that he was happy enough. He said that
+he had lived long and seen many things, and he knew that to be rich
+was not always to be happy. He quoted the proverb, "Sunshine and rice
+may be found everywhere," and the poem which may be rendered, "If you
+look at a water-fowl thoughtlessly you may imagine that she has
+nothing to do but float quietly on the water, yet she is moving her
+feet ceaselessly beneath the surface."
+
+At the little hot spring inn where we next stayed, insect powder was
+on sale, not without reasonable hope of patronage by the guests. The
+_Asahi_ once facetiously reported that I had taken on a journey three
+_to_ (six pecks) of insect powder. The chief protector of the prudent
+traveller in remote Japan is a giant pillowslip of cotton. He gets
+into it and ties the strings together under his chin. The mats and
+futon of old-fashioned hotels are full of fleas. The hard cylindrical
+Japanese pillow has no doubt its tenants also, but I never got
+accustomed to using it, and laid my head on a doubled-up kneeling
+cushion.
+
+A foot-high partition separated the men's hot bath from the women's.
+My cold bath in the morning I found I had to take unselfconsciously at
+a water-gush in front of the house. As the food was poor here, we
+were glad of our tinned food and ship's biscuits. This was of course
+in a remote part. Apart from ordinary Japanese food, there are usually
+available at the inns chicken, fish of some sort, eggs, omelettes and
+soups. With a pot of jam or two and some powdered milk in one's bag,
+one can live fairly well. Fresh milk can now be got in unlikely places
+on giving notice overnight. It is produced for invalids and children.
+If one makes no fuss, remembers one is a traveller who has resolved to
+see rural Japan, and realises that the inn people will try to do their
+best, one will not fare so badly. On the railway one is well catered
+for by the provision of _bento_ (lunch) boxes, sold on the platforms
+of stations. These chip boxes contain rice (hot), cold omelette, cold
+fish or chicken and assorted pickles, and provide an appetising and
+inexpensive meal.
+
+Monkeys, bears and antelopes are shot in this district. One man spoke
+of a troop of eighty monkeys. In the high mountain regions there are
+still people who escape the census and live a wild life. The records
+of a gipsy folk called Sanka have a history going back 700 or 800
+years.
+
+As we wound our way up and down the hill-sides we saw evidence of
+"fire-farming." It is the simple method by which a small tract with a
+favourable aspect is cleared by fire and cultivated, and then, when
+the fertility is exhausted, abandoned. I was assured that after
+fire-farming "tea springs up naturally," and that though tea-drinking
+may have been introduced from China there could not be such large
+areas of tea growing wild if tea were not indigenous.
+
+Most of our paths lay through woods and matted vegetation. I noticed
+that trees were often felled in order that mushrooms might be grown on
+and around their trunks. There is a large consumption of these
+tree-grown mushrooms in Japan and an export trade worth two and a half
+million yen.
+
+[Illustration: CULTIVATION TO THE HILL-TOPS.]
+
+An inscribed stone by our path was a reminder of the belief in
+"mountain maidens." They have the undoubted merit of not being "so
+peevish as fairies." At another stone, before which was a pile of
+small stones, a farmer told us that when a traveller threw a stone
+on the heap he "left behind his tiredness."
+
+[Illustration: IMPLEMENTS, MEASURES AND MACHINES, AND A BALE OF RICE]
+
+In the first house we came to we found a young widow turning bowls
+with power from a water-wheel. She could finish 400 bowls in a day and
+got from one to five sen apiece. She said that she had often wished to
+see a foreigner. Like nearly all the girls and women of the hills, she
+wore close-fitting blue cotton trousers.
+
+We descended to a kind of prairie which had a tree here and there and
+roughly wooded hills on either side. This brought us to the problem of
+the wise method of dealing with the enormous wood-bearing areas of the
+country, the timber crop of which is so irregular in quality. Japan
+requires many more scientifically planned forests. As coal is not in
+domestic use, however, large quantities of cheap wood are needed for
+burning and for charcoal making. The demand for hill pasture is also
+increasing. How shall the claims of good timber, good firewood, good
+charcoal-making material and good pasture be reconciled? In the county
+through which we were passing--a county which, owing to its large
+consumption of wood fuel, needs relatively little charcoal--the
+charcoal output was worth as much as 35,000 yen a year.
+
+We saw "buckwheat in full bloom as white as snow," as the Chinese poem
+says. At a farmhouse there was a box fixed on a barn wall. It was for
+communications for the police from persons who desired to make their
+suggestions for the public welfare privately.
+
+Towards evening, when we had done about twenty miles, I managed to
+twist an ankle. Happily I had the chance of a ride. It was on the back
+of a dour-looking mare which was accompanied by her foal and tied by a
+halter to the saddle of a led pack-horse which was carrying two large
+boxes. Thus impressively I did several miles in descending darkness
+and across the rocky beds of two rivers. The horse of this district is
+a downcast-looking animal in spite of the fact that it is stalled
+under the same roof as its owner and is thus able to share to some
+extent in his family life.
+
+At the town at which we at last arrived, the comfort of the hot bath
+was enhanced by a sturdy lass of the inn who unasked and unannounced
+came and applied herself resolutely to scrubbing and knuckling our
+backs.
+
+The next day I went to the principal school. There were in the place
+three primary schools, one with a branch for agricultural work. The
+"attendance" at the principal school, where there were 379 boys and
+girls, was 98 per cent, for the boys and 94 per cent, for the
+girls.[115] The buildings were most creditable to a small place fifty
+miles from a railway station. The community had met the whole cost out
+of its official funds and by subscriptions. More than half the
+expenditure of many a village is on education, which in Japan is
+compulsory but not free. One cannot but be impressed by the pride
+which is taken in the local schools. The dominating man-made feature
+of the landscape is less frequently than might be supposed a temple or
+a shrine: where the picture which catches the eye is not the vast
+expanse of the crops of the plain or the marvels of terracing for hill
+crops, it is the long, low school building, set almost invariably on
+the best possible site. The poorly paid men and women teachers are
+earnest and devoted, and their influence must be far-reaching. They
+are rewarded in part, no doubt, by the respect which pupils and the
+general public give to the _sensei_ (teacher).[116] At the school I
+visited, the children, as is customary, swept and washed out the
+schoolrooms and kept the playground trim. Above one teacher's desk
+were the following admonitions:
+
+        Be obedient.
+        Be decent.
+        Be active.
+        Be social.
+        Be serious.
+
+"Be serious"!--graver small folk sit in no schools in the world. Here,
+as usual, corporal punishment was never given. I suggested to teachers
+all sorts of juvenile delinquencies, but their faith in the
+sufficiency of reprimands, of "standing out" and of detention after
+school hours was unshaken.
+
+A new wing, a beautiful piece of carpenter's work, had cost 4,000 yen,
+a large sum in Japan, where wood and village labour are equally cheap.
+It was to be used chiefly for the gymnastics which are steadily adding
+to the stature of the Japanese people. At one end there was an
+opening, about 20 ft. across and 5 ft. deep, designed as an honourable
+place for the portraits of the Emperor and Empress, which are solemnly
+exposed to view on Imperial birthdays[117].
+
+Apart from a local spirit of pride and emulation and a belief in
+education, one of the reasons for the building of new schools and
+adding to old ones is to be found in the recent extension of the
+period of compulsory attendance. It used to be from six to ten years
+of age; it is now from six to twelve. The visitor to Japan usually
+under-estimates the ages of children because they are so small.
+Japanese boys grow suddenly from about fifteen to sixteen.
+
+In the whole of this county, with a population of 35,000, there were,
+I learnt at the county offices, 22 elementary schools with 36 branch
+schools, 3 secondary schools and 17 winter schools. Within the same
+area there were 46 Buddhist temples with about 60 priests, and 125
+Shinto shrines with 11 priests.
+
+The chief police officer, in chatting with me, mentioned that, out of
+71 charges of theft, only 47 were proceeded with. When charges were
+not proceeded with it was either because restitution had been made or
+the chief constable had exercised his discretion and dismissed the
+offender with a reprimand. When transgressors are dismissed with a
+reprimand an eye is kept on them for a year. As the Japanese are in
+considerable awe of their police, I have no doubt that, as was
+explained to me, those who have lapsed into evil-doing, but are
+released from custody with a warning, may "tremble and correct their
+conduct." In the whole county in a year 14,400 admonitions were given
+at 14 police stations. The noteworthy thing in the criminal
+statistics is the small proportion of crime against women and
+children.
+
+The fact that the county was in a remote part of Japan may be held,
+perhaps, to account for the fact that there were in it, I was assured,
+only 14 geisha and 8 women known to be of immoral character. All of
+them were living in the town and they were said to be chiefly
+patronised by commercial travellers and imported labourers. I was told
+that there were pre-nuptial relations between many young men and young
+women. Two undoubted authorities in the district agreed that they
+could not answer for the chastity of any young men before marriage or
+of "as many as 10 per cent." of the young women. In an effort to save
+the reputation of their daughters, fathers sometimes register
+illegitimate children as the offspring of themselves and their wives.
+Or when an unmarried girl is about to have a child her father may call
+the neighbours to a feast and announce to them the marriage of his
+daughter to her lover. The figures for illegitimate births are
+vitiated by the fact that in Japan children are recorded as
+illegitimate who are born to people who have omitted to register their
+otherwise respectable unions.[118]
+
+In the county in which I was travelling I was assured that half the
+still births might be put down to immoral relations and half to
+imperfect nourishment or overworking of the mother. In this district
+girls marry from 17 or 18, men from 18 to 30.
+
+The town was full of country people who had come to see the festival.
+One feature of it was the performance of plays on four ancient wheeled
+stages of a simplicity in construction that would have delighted
+William Poel. Formerly these plays were given by the local youths; now
+professional actors are employed. The different acts of the historical
+dramas which were performed were divided into half a dozen scenes, and
+when one of these scenes had been enacted the stage was wheeled
+farther along the street. At the conclusion of each scene some three
+dozen small boys, all wearing the white-and-black speckled cotton
+kimono and German caps which are the common wear of lads throughout
+Japan, would swarm up on the stage, and, with fans waved downwards,
+would yell at the pitch of their voices an ancient jingle, which
+seemed to signify "Push, push, push and go on!" This was addressed to
+a score or so of young men who with loud shouts hauled the heavy
+stage-wagon along the street. The performances on the four moving
+theatres went on simultaneously and sometimes the cars passed one
+another. The performances were given on the eve and on the day and
+through the night of the festival. The acting was amazingly good,
+considering the July heat and the cramped conditions in which the
+actors worked. Happy boys sat at the back of the scenes fanning the
+players. Our kindly and voluble landlady was not satisfied with the
+number of times the stages stopped before her inn. She loudly
+threatened the youths who were dragging them that she would reclaim
+some properties she had lent and tell her dead husband of their
+ingratitude!
+
+At one of the booths which had been opened for the festival by a
+strolling company there were women actors, contrary to the convention
+of the Japanese stage on which men enact female rôles and in doing so
+use a special falsetto. Some of these actresses performed men's parts.
+At every performance in a Japanese theatre, as I have already
+mentioned, a policeman is provided with a chair on a special platform,
+or in an otherwise favourable position, so that he can view and if
+necessary censor what is going on. The constable at this particular
+play was kind enough to offer me his seat. The rest of the audience
+was content with the floor. The poor little company of players brought
+to their work both ability and an artistic conscience, but they had to
+do everything in the rudest way. They were in no way embarrassed by
+the attendants frequently trimming the inferior oil lamps on the
+stage. A little girl on the floor, entranced by the performance on the
+stage, or curious about some detail of it, ran forward and laid her
+chin on the boards and studied the actors at leisure. The folk in the
+front row of the gallery dangled their naked legs for coolness.
+
+One of my friends asked me how we managed in the West to identify the
+people who wanted to leave the theatre between the acts. I explained
+that as our performances did not last from early afternoon until
+nearly midnight it was rare for anyone to wish to leave a theatre
+until the play was over. At a Japanese playhouse, however, a portion
+of the audience may be disposed to go home at some stage of the
+proceedings and return later. The careful manager of a small theatre
+identifies these patrons by impressing a small stamp on the palms of
+their hands.
+
+From the theatre we went to the travelling shows. They charged 2 sen.
+We were shown a mermaid, peepshows, a snake, an unhappy bear, three
+doleful monkeys and some stuffed animals which may or may not have had
+in life an uncommon number of legs. There was a barefaced imposture by
+a young and pretty show-woman who insisted that two marmots in her lap
+were the offspring of a girl. "Look," she cried, "at two sisters, the
+daughters of one mother. See their hands!" And she held up their paws.
+She rounded off the fraud by feeding the creatures with condensed
+milk.
+
+As I returned to the inn from these Elizabethan scenes I noticed that
+I was preceded in the crowd by a spectacled policeman who carried a
+paper lantern. Although, as I have explained, the stage plays given in
+the street were continued all night, only one arrest was made. The
+prisoner was a drunkard who proved to be a medicine seller but
+described himself as a journalist. I went to see the clean wooden cell
+where topers are confined until they are sober. It had a very low
+door, so that culprits might be compelled to enter and leave humbly on
+their knees.
+
+We had begun our festival day at six in the morning by attending a
+celebration at the Shinto shrine. "Although it is no longer necessary,
+perhaps, to attend the ceremony in a special kind of _geta_," said our
+landlady, "it would be as well if you observed the old rule not to
+attend without taking a bath in the early morning."[119]
+
+At the ancient shrine the townspeople whose turn it was to attend the
+annual function had assembled in ceremonial costumes. One man wore his
+hair tied up in the fashion of the old prints. The plaintive strains
+of old instruments made the strange appeal of all folk music. A
+decorous procession was headed by the piebald pony of the shrine.
+Youths and maidens carried aloft tubs of rice, vegetables, fish and
+_saké_. These were received by the chief priest. He carefully placed a
+strip of cloth before his mouth and nose[120] and addressed the chief
+deity, all heads being bowed. Then the priest placed the offerings in
+the darkened interior of the shrine. There was a cheery naturalness in
+all the proceedings. A few small children in gay holiday dress ran
+freely among the worshippers and encountered indulgent smiles. When an
+end had been made of offering food and drink the priest within the
+shrine read a second message to the deity. Again all heads were bowed.
+His thin voice was heard in the morning quiet, interrupted only by a
+child's cry, the twittering of birds and the wind rustling the
+cryptomeria, dark against the blue of the hills.
+
+After the ceremony the food and drink which had been brought by the
+people were consumed by the priests and the country folk in a large
+room of the chief priest's house. We were given ceremonial _saké_ to
+which rice had been added and as mementoes little cakes and dried
+fish. Not so long ago the presence of a foreigner would have been
+unwelcome at such a ceremony as we had witnessed: the fear of
+"contagion of foreigners" extended even to people from another
+prefecture. To-day the amiable priest placed in our hands for a few
+moments a small Buddha supposed to be six centuries old.
+
+Before the festival the priest had observed certain taboos for eight
+days. He had avoided meeting persons in mourning and his food had been
+cooked at a specially prepared fire. He had been careful not to touch
+other persons, particularly women; he had bathed several times daily
+in cold water and he had said many prayers. The heads of the household
+in the community whose turn it was to attend at the shrine were also
+supposed to have observed some of the same taboos. Only those persons
+might make offerings at the shrine whose fathers and mothers were
+living.[121] Formerly portions of the offerings of rice and _saké_ at
+the shrine were solemnly given to a young girl.
+
+In this district, when we discussed the influences which made for
+moral or non-material improvement, everyone put the school first. Then
+came home training. In this part of the world the Buddhist priest was
+too often indifferent; the Shinto priest worked at his farm. One
+person well qualified to express an opinion said that a "wise and
+benevolent" chief constable could exercise a good moral influence.
+Others believed in public opinion. A policeman said, "The first thing
+is for people to have food and clothes; without such primary
+satisfaction it is very difficult to expect them to be moral." In
+considering the influence of the police and the schoolmaster it is not
+without interest to remember that a chief of police and the head of a
+school receive about the same salary. Assistant teachers and plain
+constables are also on an equality. I found the salary of the
+administrative head of one county, the _gunchō_, to be only 2,000 yen
+a year.
+
+I was told that in the prefecture we were passing through there were
+no fewer than 360 co-operative societies. The credit branches had a
+capital of two million yen; the purchase and sale branches showed a
+turnover of three million yen. In time of famine, due to too low a
+temperature for the rice or to floods which drown the crop,
+co-operation had proved its value. The prefectures north of Tokyo
+facing the Pacific are the chief victims of famine, for near Sendai
+the warm current from the south turns off towards America. I was told
+that the number of persons who actually die as the result of famine
+has been "exaggerated." The number in 1905 was "not more than a
+hundred." These unfortunates were infants "and infirm people who
+suffered from lack of suitable nourishment." Every year the
+development of railway and steam communications makes easier the task
+of relieving famine sufferers.[122] In the old days people were often
+found dead who had money but were unable to get food for it. As Japan
+is a long island with varying climates there is never general
+scarcity.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[114] For statistics of railways, see Appendix XXXV.
+
+[115] The percentage of children "attending" school for the whole of
+Japan is officially reported in 1918 as: cities, 98.18 per cent.;
+villages, 99.23 per cent.; but this does not mean daily attendance.
+
+[116] Since 1919 the salaries of elementary school teachers have been
+raised to 26, 16 and 15 yen per month, according to grade.
+
+[117] Only last year (1921) another schoolmaster lost his life in an
+endeavour to save the Emperor's portrait from his burning school.
+
+[118] See Appendix XXXVI.
+
+[119] A hot bath is ordinarily obtainable only in the afternoon and
+evening in most Japanese hotels. In the morning people are content
+merely with rinsing their hands and face.
+
+[120] In addressing a superior, many Japanese still draw in their
+breath from time to time audibly.
+
+[121] That is, persons who might be considered not to have failed in
+their filial duties.
+
+[122] After the failure of the 1918-19 crop in India, 600,000 persons
+were in receipt of famine relief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE DWELLERS IN THE HILLS
+(FUKUSHIMA)
+
+I didn't visit this place in the hope of seeing fine prospects--my study
+is man.--BORROW
+
+
+Before I left the town I had a chat with a landowner who turned his
+tenants' rent rice into _saké_. He was of the fifth generation of
+brewers. He said that in his childhood drunken men often lay about the
+street; now, he said, drunken men were only to be seen on festival
+days.
+
+There had been a remarkable development in the trade in flavoured
+aerated waters, "lemonade" and "cider champagne" chiefly. I found
+these beverages on sale in the remotest places, for the Japanese have
+the knack of tying a number of bottles together with rope, which makes
+them easily transportable. The new lager beers, which are advertised
+everywhere, have also affected the consumption of _saké_.[123] _Saké_
+is usually compared with sherry. It is drunk mulled. At a banquet,
+lasting five or six hours or longer, a man "strong in _saké_" may
+conceivably drink ten _go_ (a _go_ is about one-third of a pint)
+before achieving drunkenness, but most people would be affected by
+three _go_. Some of the topers who boast of the quantity of _saké_
+they can consume--I have heard of men declaring that they could drink
+twenty _go_--are cheated late in the evening by the waiting-maids. The
+little _saké_ bottles are opaque, and it is easy to remove them for
+refilling before they are quite empty.
+
+The brewer, who was a firm adherent of the Jishu sect of Buddhists,
+was accustomed to burn incense with his family at the domestic shrine
+every morning. But this was not the habit of all the adherents of his
+denomination. As to the moral advancement of the neighbourhood, his
+grandfather "tried very earnestly to improve the district by means of
+religion, but without result." He himself attached most value to
+education and after that to young men's associations.
+
+As we left the town we passed a "woman priest" who was walking to
+Nikko, eighty miles away. Portraits of dead people, entrusted to her
+by their relatives for conveyance to distant shrines, were hung round
+her body.
+
+As the route became more and more hilly I realised how accurate is
+that representation of hills in Japanese art which seems odd before
+one has been in Japan: the landscape stands out as if seen in a flash
+of lightning.
+
+Three things by the way were arresting: the number of shrines, mostly
+dedicated to the fox god; the rice suspended round the farm buildings
+or drying on racks; and the masses of evening primroses, called in
+Japan "moon-seeing flowers."
+
+A feature of every village was one or more barred wooden sheds
+containing fire-extinguishing apparatus, often provided and worked by
+the young men's association. Sometimes a piece of ground was described
+to me as "the training ground of the fire defenders." The night
+patrols of the village were young fellows chosen in turn by the
+constable from the fire-prevention parties, made up by the youths of
+the village. There stood up in every village a high perpendicular
+ladder with a bell or wooden clapper at the top to give the alarm. The
+emblem of the fire brigade, a pole with white paper streamers
+attached, was sometimes distinguished by a yellow paper streamer
+awarded by the prefecture.
+
+On a sweltering July day it was difficult to realise that the villages
+we passed through, now half hidden in foliage, might be under 7 ft. of
+snow in winter. In travelling in this hillier region one has an extra
+_kurumaya_, who pushes behind or acts as brakeman.
+
+At the "place of the seven peaks" we found a stone dedicated to the
+worship of the stars which form the Plough. Again and again I noticed
+shrines which had before them two tall trees, one larger than the
+other, called "man and wife." It was explained to me that "there
+cannot be a more sacred place than where husband and wife stand
+together." A small tract of cryptomeria on the lower slopes of a hill
+belonged to the school. The children had planted it in honour of the
+marriage of the Emperor when he was Crown Prince.
+
+Often the burial-grounds, the stones of which are seldom more than
+about 2 ft. high by 6 ins. wide, are on narrow strips of roadside
+waste. (The coffin is commonly square, and the body is placed in it in
+the kneeling position so often assumed in life.) Here, as elsewhere,
+there seemed to be rice fields in every spot where rice fields could
+possibly be made.
+
+On approaching a village the traveller is flattered by receiving the
+bows of small girls and boys who range themselves in threes and fours
+to perform their act of courtesy. I was told that the children are
+taught at school to bow to foreigners. I remember that in the remoter
+villages of Holland the stranger also received the bows of young
+people.
+
+On the house of the headman of one village were displayed charms for
+protection from fire, theft and epidemic. We spoke of weather signs,
+and he quoted a proverb, "Never rely on the glory of the morning or on
+the smile of your mother-in-law."
+
+We had before us a week's travel by _kuruma_. Otherwise we should have
+liked to have brought away specimens of the wooden utensils of some of
+the villages. The travelling woodworker whom we often encountered--he
+has to travel about in order to reach new sources of wood supply--has
+been despised because of his unsettled habits, but I was told that
+there was a special deity to look after him. In the town we had left
+there was delightful woodwork, but most of the draper's stuff was
+pitiful trash made after what was supposed to be foreign fashions. I
+may also mention the large collection of blood-and-thunder stories
+upon Western models which were piled up in the stationers' shops.
+
+As we walked up into the hills--the _kuruma_ men were sent by an
+easier route--we passed plenty of sweet chestnuts and saw large
+masses of blue single hydrangea and white and pink spirea. We came on
+the ruined huts of those who had burnt a bit of hillside and taken
+from it a few crops of buckwheat. The charred trunks of trees stood up
+among the green undergrowth that had invaded the patches. There was a
+great deal of plantain and a _kurumaya_ mentioned that sometimes when
+children found a dead frog they buried it in leaves of that plant.
+Japanese children are also in the habit of angling for frogs with a
+piece of plantain. The frogs seize the plantain and are jerked ashore.
+
+We took our lunch on a hill top. It had been a stiff climb and we
+marvelled at the expense to which a poor county must be put for the
+maintenance of roads which so often hang on cliff sides or span
+torrents. The great piles of wood accumulated at the summit turned the
+talk to "silent trade." In "silent trade" people on one side of a hill
+traded with people on the other side without meeting. The products
+were taken to the hill top and left there, usually in a rough shed
+built to protect the goods from rain. The exchange might be on the
+principle of barter or of cash payment. But the amount of goods given
+in exchange or the cash payment made was left to honour. "Silent
+trade" still continues in certain parts of Japan. Sometimes the price
+expected for goods is written up in the shed. "Silent trade"
+originated because of fears of infectious disease; it survives because
+it is more convenient for one who has goods to sell or to buy to
+travel up and down one side of a mountain than up and down two sides.
+
+As we proceeded on our way we were once more struck by the
+extraordinary wealth of wood. Here is a country where every household
+is burning wood and charcoal daily, a country where not only the
+houses but most of the things in common use are made of wood; and
+there seems to be no end to the trees that remain. It is little wonder
+that in many parts there has been and is improvident use of wood.
+Happily every year the regulation of timber areas and wise planting
+make progress. But for many square miles of hillside I saw there is no
+fitting word but jungle.
+
+At the small ramshackle hot-spring inns of the remote hills the
+guests are mostly country folk. Many of them carefully bring their own
+rice and _miso_, and are put up at a cost of about 10 sen a day. In
+the passage ways one finds rough boxes about 4 ft. square full of wood
+ash in the centre of which charcoal may be burned and kettles boiled.
+
+We were in a region where there is snow from the middle of November to
+the middle of April. For two-thirds of December and January the snow
+is never less than 2 ft. deep. The attendance of the children at one
+school during the winter was 95 per cent. for boys and 90 per cent.
+for girls. (See note, p. 112.)
+
+My _kurumaya_ pointed to a mountain top where, he said, there were
+nearly three acres of beautiful flowers. The rice fields in the hills
+were suffering from lack of water and a deputation of villagers had
+gone ten miles into the mountains to pray for rain. It is wonderful at
+what altitudes rice fields are contrived. I noted some at 2,500 ft. In
+looking down from a place where the cliff road hung out over the river
+that flowed a hundred feet below I noticed a stone image lying on its
+back in the water. It may have come there by accident, but the ducking
+of such a figure in order to procure rain is not unknown.
+
+At an inn I asked one of the greybeards who courteously visited us if
+there would be much competition for his seat when he retired from the
+village assembly. He thought that there would be several candidates.
+In the town from which we had set out on our journey through the
+highlands a doctor had spent 500 yen in trying to get on the assembly.
+
+The tea at this resting place was poor and someone quoted the proverb,
+"Even the devil was once eighteen and bad tea has its tolerable first
+cup." On going to the village office I found that for a population of
+2,000 there were, in addition to the village shrine, sixteen other
+shrines and three Buddhist temples. Against fire there were four fire
+pumps and 155 "fire defenders." A dozen of the young men of the
+village were serving in the army, four were home on furlough, six were
+invalided and forty were of the reserve. As many as thirty-seven had
+medals. The doctors were two in number and the midwives three. There
+was a sanitary committee of twenty-three members. The revenue of the
+village was 5,740 yen. It had a fund of 740 yen "against time of
+famine." The taxes paid were 2,330 yen for State tax, 2,460 yen for
+prefectural tax and 4,350 yen for village tax. The village possessed
+two co-operative societies, a young men's association, a Buddhist
+young men's association, a Buddhist young women's association, a
+society for the development of knowledge, a society of the graduates
+of the primary school, two thrift organisations, a society for
+"promoting knowledge and virtue," and an association the members of
+which "aimed at becoming distinguished." There were in the village
+ninety subscribers to the Red Cross and two dozen members of the
+national Patriotic Women's Association.
+
+In the county through which we were moving there was gold, silver and
+copper mining.[124] Out of its population of 36,000 only 632 were
+entitled to vote for an M.P.
+
+We rested at a school where the motto was, "Even in this good reign I
+pray because I wish to make our country more glorious." There were
+portraits of four deceased local celebrities and of Peter the Great,
+Franklin, Lincoln, Commander Perry and Bismarck. Illustrated wall
+charts showed how to sit on a school seat, how to identify poisonous
+plants and how to conform to the requirements of etiquette. The
+following admonitions were also displayed--a copy of them is given to
+each child, who is expected to read the twelve counsels every morning
+before coming to school:
+
+  1.--Do your own work and don't rely on others to do it.
+
+  2.--Be ardent when you learn or play.
+
+  3.--Endeavour to do away with your bad habits and cultivate good ones.
+
+  4.--Never tell a lie and be careful when you speak.
+
+  5.--Do what you think right in your heart and at the same time have
+  good manners.
+
+  6.--Overcome difficulties and never hold back from hard work.
+
+  7.--Do not make appointments which you are uncertain to keep.
+
+  8.--Do not carelessly lend or borrow.
+
+  9.--Do not pass by another's difficulties and do not give another
+  much trouble.
+
+  10.--Be careful about things belonging to the public as well as
+  about things belonging to yourself.
+
+  11.--Keep the outside and inside of the school clean and also
+  take care of waste paper.
+
+  12.--Never play with a grumbling spirit.
+
+There was stuck on the roofs of many houses a rod with a piece of
+white paper attached, a charm against fire. One house so provided was
+next door to the fire station. Frequently we passed a children's
+_jizō_ or Buddha, comically decked in the hat and miscellaneous
+garments of youngsters whose grateful mothers believed them to have
+been cured by the power of the deity.
+
+Speaking of clothes, it was the hottest July weather and the natural
+garment was at most a loin cloth. The women wore a piece of red or
+coloured cotton from their waist to their knees. The backs of the men
+and women who were working in the open were protected by a flapping
+ricestraw mat or by an armful of green stuff. The boys under ten or so
+were naked and so were many little girls. But the influence of the
+Westernising period ideas of what was "decent" in the presence of
+foreigners survives. So, whenever a policeman was near, people of all
+ages were to be seen huddling on their kimonos. I was sorry for a
+merry group of boys and girls aged 12 or 13 who in that torrid
+weather[125] were bathing at an ideal spot in the river and suddenly
+caught sight of a policeman. It is deplorable that a consciousness of
+nakedness should be cultivated when nakedness is natural, traditional
+and hygienic. (Even in the schools the girls are taught to make their
+kimonos meet at the neck--with a pin![126]--much higher than they used
+to be worn.) It is only fair to bear in mind, however, that some
+hurrying on of clothes by villagers is done out of respect to the
+passing superior, before whom it is impolite to appear without
+permission half dressed or wearing other than the usual clothing.
+
+At a hot spring we found many patrons because, as I was told, "Ox-day
+is very suitable for bathing." The old pre-Meiji days of the week were
+twelve: Rat-, Ox-, Tiger-, Hare-, Dragon-, Snake-, Horse-, Sheep-,
+Monkey-, Fowl-, Dog-and Boar-day. When the Western seven days of the
+week were adopted they were rendered into Japanese as: Sun, Moon,
+Fire, Water, Wood, Metal and Earth, followed by the word meaning star
+or planet and day. For instance, Sunday is _Nichi_ (Sun) _yo_ (star)
+_bi_ (day), and Monday, _Getsu_ (Moon) _yo_ (planet) _bi_ (day), or
+_Nichi-yo-bi_ and _Getsu-yo-bi_. For brevity the _bi_ is often dropped
+off.
+
+The headman of a village we passed through told me that the occasion
+of my coming was the first on which English had been heard in those
+parts. Talking about the people of his village, he said that there had
+been four divorces in the year. Once in four or five years a child was
+born within a few months of marriage. In the whole county there had
+been among 310 young men examined for the army only four cases of
+"disgraceful disease." There was no immoral woman in the 75-miles-long
+valley. Elsewhere in the county many young men were in debt, but in
+the headman's village no youth was without a savings-bank book. And
+the local men-folk "did not use women's savings as in some places."
+
+One shrine we passed seemed to be dedicated to the moon. Another was
+intended to propitiate the horsefly. Several villages had boxes
+fastened on posts for the reception of broken glass. As we approached
+one village I saw an inscription put up by the young men's
+association, "Good Crops and Prosperity to the Village." When we came
+to the next village the schoolmaster was responsible for an
+inscription, "Peace to the World and Safety to the State." In other
+places I found young men's society notice boards giving information
+about the area of land in a village, how it was cropped, the kind of
+crops, the area of forest, lists of famous places, etc.
+
+[Illustration: MOVABLE STAGE AT A FESTIVAL FIFTY MILES FROM A RAILWAY.]
+
+[Illustration: FARMHOUSE AT WHICH MR. UCHIMURA PREACHED.]
+
+In the gorges we rode over many suspension bridges and crossed the
+backbone of Japan in unforgettable scenes of romantic beauty. From
+the craggy paths of our highlands, amid a wealth not only of gorgeous
+flowers and greenery but of great velvety butterflies, we saw the
+far-off snow-clad Japanese Alps.
+
+[Illustration: TENANT FARMERS' HOUSES]
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING."]
+
+[Illustration: SOME PERFORMERS AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING."]
+
+At one of the schools where we lunched I noticed that the large wall
+maps were of Siam and Malaya, Borneo, Australia and China (two). The
+portraits were of Florence Nightingale, Lincoln, Napoleon and Christ
+as the Good Shepherd, the last named being "a present from a believer
+friend of the schoolmaster."[127] This school closed at noon from July
+10 to July 31, and had twenty days' vacation in August and another
+twenty days in the rice-planting and busy sericultural season. The
+sewing-room of the school was used in winter as a dormitory for boys
+who lived at a distance. Accommodation for girls was provided in the
+village. The children brought their rice with them. The products of
+the school farm were also eaten by the boarding pupils. It was
+estimated that the cost of maintaining the girls was 10 sen a day.
+Three-fourths of this expense was borne by the village. The regularity
+and strictness of the dormitory management were found to have an
+excellent effect. At the winter school, an adjunct of the day school,
+there was an attendance of a score of youths and sixty girls.
+
+Speaking of a place where we stayed for the night, one who had a wide
+knowledge of rural Japan said that he did not think that there was a
+lonelier spot where farming was carried on. There was no market or
+fair for 80 or 90 miles and the little groups of houses were 2 or 3
+miles apart. In this district, it was explained, "the rich are not so
+rich and the poor are not so poor."
+
+We passed somewhere a fine shrine for the welfare of horses. At a
+certain festival hundreds of horses are driven down there to gallop
+round and round the sacred buildings. Thousands of people attend this
+festival, but it was declared that no one was ever hurt by the horses.
+
+The poetical names of country inns would make an interesting
+collection. I remember that it was at "the inn of cold spring water"
+that the waiting-maid had never seen cow's milk. She proved to be the
+daughter of the host and wore a gold ring by way of marking the fact.
+This girl told us that on the banks of the river there was only one
+house in 70 miles. The village was having the usual holiday to
+celebrate the end of the toilsome sericultural season.
+
+On our way to the next village we met two far-travelled young women
+selling the dried seaweed which, in many varieties, figures in the
+Japanese dietary.[128] (There are shops which sell nothing but
+prepared seaweeds.) A notice board there informed us that the road was
+maintained at the cost of the local young men's society. As we were on
+foot we felt grateful, for the road was well kept. We passed for miles
+over planking hung on the cliff side or on roadway carried on
+embankments. On the suspended pathways there was now and then a plank
+loose or broken, and there was no rail between the pedestrian and the
+torrent dashing below. Where there was embanked roadway it was almost
+always uphill and downhill and it frequently swung sharply round the
+corner of a cliff. As the river increased in volume we saw many rafts
+of timber shooting the rapids. At one place twenty-six raftsmen had
+been drowned. The remnants of two bridges showed the force of the
+floods.
+
+In this region the _kurumaya_ were hard put to it at times and once a
+_kuruma_ broke down. Its owner cheerfully detached its broken axle and
+went off with it at a trot ten miles or so to a blacksmith. Later he
+traversed the ten miles once more to refit his _kuruma_, afterwards
+coming on fifteen more miles to our inn. The endurance and cheeriness
+of the _kurumaya_ were surprising. It was usually in face of their
+protests that we got out to ease them while going uphill. Every
+morning they wanted to arrange to go farther than we thought
+reasonable. Each man had not only his passenger but his passenger's
+heavy bag. One day we did thirty-six miles over rough roads. The
+_kurumaya_ proposed to cover fifty. They showed spirit, good nature
+and loyalty. The character of their conversation is worth mentioning.
+At one point they were discussing the plays we had witnessed, at other
+times the scenery, local legends, the best routes and the crops,
+material condition and disposition of the villagers. Our _kurumaya_
+compared very favourably indeed with men of an equal social class at
+home. Their manners were perfect. They stayed at the same inns as we
+did--once in the next room--and behaved admirably. Every evening the
+men washed their white cotton shorts and jackets--their whole costume
+except for a wide-brimmed sun hat and straw _waraji_. Tied to the axle
+of each _kuruma_ were several pairs of _waraji_, for on the rough hill
+roads this simple form of footgear soon wears out. Discarded _waraji_
+are to be seen on every roadside in Japan.
+
+The inscriptions on some of the wayside stones we passed had been
+written by priests so ignorant that the wording was either ridiculous
+or almost without meaning. But there was no difficulty in deciphering
+an inscription on a stone which declared that it had been erected by a
+company of Buddhists who claimed to have repeated the holy name of
+Amida 2,000,000 times. (The idea is that salvation may be obtained by
+the repetition of the phrase _Namu Amida Butsu_.) A small stone set up
+on a rock in the middle of paddy fields intimated that at that spot
+"people gathered to see the moon one night every month." A third stone
+was dedicated to the monkey as the messenger of a certain god, just as
+the fox is regarded as the messenger of Inari.
+
+We saw during our journey large numbers of _kiri_ (Paulownia) used for
+making _geta_ and bride's chests. Some farmers seem to plant _kiri_
+trees at the birth of a daughter so as to have wood for her wedding
+chest or money for her outfit[129]. _Kiri_ seems to be increasingly
+grown. On the other hand in the same districts lacquer trees were now
+seldom planted. The farmers complained that they were cheated by the
+collectors of lacquer who come round to cut the trees. The age of
+cutting was given me as the eighth or ninth year, but poor farmers
+sometimes allowed a young tree to be cut. A tree may be cut once a
+year for three or four years. After that it is useless even for fuel,
+owing to the smell it gives off, and is often left standing. The old
+scarred trunks, sometimes headless, suggested the tattooed faces and
+bodies of Maori veterans. As lacquer is poisonous to the skin the wood
+calls for careful handling. I saw one of the itinerant lacquer
+collectors, his hands wrapped in cotton, operating on a tree.
+
+During a particularly hot run we had the good fortune to come on a
+soda-water spring from which we all drank freely. A factory erected to
+tap the spring was in ruins. Evidently the cost of carriage was
+prohibitive.
+
+In these hills the rice was planted farther apart than is usual so
+that the sun might warm the water. Here as elsewhere _daikon_ were
+hung up to dry on walls and trees, and looked like giant tallow
+candles. Below a bridge, which marked the village boundary, flags had
+been flung down by way of keeping off epidemics. Evil spirits were
+warded off by special dances.
+
+The porch of a little tea-house where we rested was covered with
+grapes. Soon after leaving it we reached our destination for the
+night, a small town of houses of several storeys which clustered on a
+hillside under the shadow of a Zen temple. Meat and eggs were
+forbidden to the town, but as the residents were all Zen Buddhists the
+restriction was no hardship. There was no cow in the place, but
+condensed milk was allowed. A man at the inn told me that he knew of
+ten Shinto shrines which forbade the use of chickens and eggs in their
+localities. The view from the temple, perched high on its rock above
+the wide riverway, was exceptionally fine. Parties of boys and girls
+of thirteen paid visits to this temple "because thirteen is known as a
+perilous age." The people of the vegetarian town, instead of feeding
+on the fish in the river, fed them. I saw a shoal of fish being given
+scraps at the water edge.
+
+As we went on our way and spoke of the bad roads it was suggested that
+in the old days roads were purposely left uphill and downhill in order
+that the advance of enemies might be hindered. We came to a
+dilapidated tea-house kept by an ugly old woman who showed a touching
+fondness for a cat and a dog. From her shack we had a view of a
+volcano which had destroyed two villages a few years before. Our
+hostess, who made much of us, said that the catastrophe had been
+preceded by "horrible da-da-da-bang" sounds and lightnings, and that
+it was accompanied by "thunderbolts and heavy thick smoke." The old
+woman had beheld "soil boiling and cracking."
+
+Along our route we had more evidences of "fire farming." The procedure
+was to sow buckwheat the first year and rape and millet the second
+year. In the cryptomeria forests there was a variety which, when cut,
+sprouts from the ground and makes a new growth like an elm. One crop
+we saw was ginseng, protected by low structures covered by matting.
+
+At length we heard the distant sound of a locomotive whistle. We were
+approaching the newly opened railway which was to take us the short
+run to the sea. Soon we were in a rather unkempt village which had
+hardly recovered from its surprise at finding that it had a railway
+station. We paid our _kurumaya_ the sum contracted for and something
+over for their faithful service and for their long return run, and
+having exchanged bows and cordial greetings, we left for a time the
+glorified perambulators which a foreign missionary is supposed to have
+introduced half a century ago. (The Japanese claim the honour of
+"inventing" the jinrikisha.)
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[123] See Appendix XXXVII.
+
+[124] See Appendix XXXVIII.
+
+[125] In Tokyo one may sleep night after night in summer with no
+covering but the thinnest loose cotton kimono and have an electric fan
+going within the mosquito curtain, and still feel the heat.
+
+[126] The kimono has no button, hook, tie, or fastening of any kind,
+and is kept in place by the waist string and _obi_.
+
+[127] It is an illustration of the difficulty of using a foreign
+symbolism that it is unlikely that a single child in the school had
+ever seen a shepherd or a sheep.
+
+[128] In 1918 the value of seaweed was returned at 13,600,000 yen.
+
+[129] In fifteen years a _kiri_ tree may be about 20 ft. high and 3
+ft. in circumference and be worth 30 yen. _Kiri_ trees to the value of
+3 million yen were felled in 1918.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+SHRINES AND POETRY
+
+(NIIGATA AND TOYAMA)
+
+Sir, I am talking of the mass of the people.--JOHNSON
+
+
+The railway made its way through snow stockades and through many
+tunnels which pierced cryptomeria-clad hills. Eventually we descended
+to the wonderful Kambara plains, a sea of emerald rice. Fourteen
+million bushels of rice are produced on the flats of Niigata
+prefecture, which grows more rice than any other. The rice, grown
+under 800 different names, is officially graded into half a dozen
+qualities. The problem of the high country we had come from was how to
+keep its paddy fields from drying up; the problem of Niigata is
+chiefly to keep the water in its fields at a sufficiently low level.
+Almost every available square yard of the prefecture is paddy.
+
+At Gosen there were depressing-looking weaving sheds, but the Black
+Country created by the oil fields farther on was in even more striking
+contrast with the beautiful region we had left. The petroleum yield
+was 65 million gallons, and the smell of the oil went with us to the
+capital city.
+
+Niigata has a dark reputation for exporting farmers' daughters to
+other parts of Japan, but I have also heard that the percentage of
+attendance made by the children at the primary schools of the
+prefecture is higher than anywhere else. Like Amsterdam, Niigata is a
+city of bridges. There must be 200 of them. The big timber bridge
+across the estuary is nearly half a mile long. One finds in Niigata a
+Manchester-like spirit of business enterprise. Our hotel was
+excellent.
+
+Because they speak with all sorts of people and hear a great deal of
+conversation the blind _amma_ are full of interesting gossip. A clever
+_amma_ who ran his knuckles up and down my back said that farm land a
+good way from Niigata was sold at from 200 yen to 300 yen and
+sometimes at 400 yen per quarter acre.[130] Prefectural officials who
+called on me explained that drainage operations on a large scale were
+being completed. The water of which the low land was relieved would be
+used to extend farming in the hills. An effort was also being made to
+develop stock-keeping in the uplands. It was proposed "to supply every
+farmer with a scheme for increasing his live stock." The optimistic
+authorities were particularly attracted by the notion of keeping
+sheep. The plan was to arrange for co-operation in hill pasturing and
+in wool and meat production. Mutton was as yet unknown, however, in
+Niigata. (The mutton eaten by foreigners in Japan usually comes from
+Shanghai.)
+
+I went into the country to a little place where the natural gas from
+the soil was used by the farmers for lighting and cooking. I heard
+talk in this village and in others of the influence of the local army
+reservists' society. "Young men on returning from their army service
+are always influential. They are much respected by the youths and are
+talkative indeed in the village assembly."
+
+As our host was the village headman he kindly brought the assembly
+together to meet me. I asked the assembled fathers about two stones
+erected in the village. Somebody had kindled a fire of rice screenings
+near one of them and it had been scorched. On the other stone a kimono
+had been hung to dry. The explanation was that the stones were
+monuments not shrines, and that the people who had set them up had
+left the district. The stones were no doubt respected while the donors
+lived. It was not uncommon for a pilgrim to a shrine to erect a
+memorial on his return home.
+
+In this village fifty Shinto shrines of the fifth class had been
+closed under the influence of the Home Office. They were shrines which
+had no offering from the village to support them. They had only a few
+worshippers. All the remaining shrines were of the fifth class but
+one, and it was of the fourth class. In the county there was a
+second-class shrine and in the whole prefecture there were two or
+three first-class shrines. The villagers had agreed among themselves
+which of their own shrines should be made an end of. A shrine which
+was dispensed with was burnt. The stone steps approaching it were also
+removed. Burning was not sacrilege but purification. On the closing of
+a shrine there might be complaints on the part of some old man or
+woman, but the majority of people approved. One Shinto shrine guardian
+lived at the fourth-class shrine and conducted a ceremony at the
+sixteen fifth-class shrines. Of the twenty Buddhist temples in the
+village (300 families cultivating an average of a _chō_ apiece),
+twelve were Hokke, five Shingon, two Shinshu and one Zen. All the
+priests were married.[131]
+
+I have used the phrase "Buddhist temple" loosely and may do so again,
+for it conveys an idea which "Buddhist church" does not. A temple
+(_dō_) is properly an edifice in which a Buddha is enshrined. This
+building is not for services or burial ceremonies or anniversary
+offerings for departed souls. It may or may not have a guardian
+(_domori_). He is never a priest with a shaven head. A Buddhist church
+(_tera_) is a place where adherents go as anniversaries come round or
+for sermons. It possesses a priest. There is a considerable difference
+in the style of Buddhist edifices according to their denomination--Zen
+buildings are particularly plain--but all are more elaborate than
+Shinto shrines.
+
+A large Shinto shrine is called _yashiro_ (house of god); a small one
+_hokora_. A _hokora_ is transportable. Originally it was and in some
+places it still is a perishable wooden shrine thatched with reed or
+grass straw which is renewed at the spring and autumn festivals. It
+may be less than two feet high and may be made of stone or wood. But
+it cannot be regarded as a building. Inside there are _gohei_ (upright
+sticks with paper streamers). In a rich man's house a _hokora_ may be
+seven or eight feet high or bigger than the smallest _yashiro_, and
+may be embellished with colour and metal.
+
+Returning to Buddhism, if a priest has a son he may be succeeded by
+him. But many Buddhist priests marry late and have no children. Or
+their children do not want to be priests. So the priest adopts a
+successor. Sometimes he maintains an orphan as acolyte or coadjutor.
+During the day this assistant goes to school. In the evenings and
+during holidays he is taught to become a priest. When the
+primary-school education is finished the lad may be sent by his
+patron, if he is well enough off, to a school of his sect at Kyoto or
+Tokyo.
+
+My travelling companion spoke of the infiltration of new ideas in town
+and country. "A mixing is taking place in the heart and head of
+everybody who is not a bigot. But I don't know that some kinds of
+Christianity are to do much for us. I heard the other day of a
+Japanese Presbyterian who was preaching with zest about hell fire.
+Generally speaking, our old men are looking to the past and our young
+men are aspiring, but not all. Some are content if they can live
+uncriticised by their neighbours. When they become old they may begin
+to think of a future life and visit temples. But as young men their
+thoughts are fully occupied by things of this world."
+
+In the office of the headman whom I mentioned a page or so back, there
+was behind his chair a _kakemono_ which read, "Reflecting and
+Examining One's Inner Spirit." We passed a night in the old house of
+this headman, who was a poet and a country gentleman of a delightful
+type. Being an eldest son he had married young, and his relations with
+his eldest boy, a frank and clever lad, were pleasant to see. The
+garden, instead of being shut in by a wall with a tiled coping or by a
+palisade of bamboo stems in the ordinary way, was open towards the
+rice fields, a scene of restful beauty. As our _kuruma_ drew near the
+house, the steward appeared, a broom in his hand. Running for a short
+distance before us until we entered the courtyard, he symbolically
+swept the ground according to old custom. After a delightful hot bath
+and an elaborate supper, which my fellow traveller afterwards assured
+me had meant a week's work for the women of the household--snapping
+turtle and choice bamboo shoots were among the honourable dishes--we
+gathered at the open side of the room overlooking the garden.
+Fireflies glowed in the paddies and in the garden two stone lanterns
+had been lighted. One of them, which had a crescent-shaped opening cut
+in it, gleamed like the moon; the other, which had a small serrated
+opening, represented a star.
+
+I paid a visit to the local agricultural co-operative store which did
+business under the motto, "Faith is the Mother of all Virtue." More
+than half the money taken at the store was for artificial manures.
+Next came purchases of imported rice, for, like the Danish peasants
+who export their butter and eat margarine, the local peasants sold
+their own rice and bought the Saigon variety. The society sold in a
+year a considerable quantity of _saké_. Stretched over the doorway of
+the building in which the goods of the society were stored were the
+rope and paper streamers which are seen before Shinto shrines and
+consecrated places. The society had a large flag post for weather
+signals, a white flag for a fine day, a red one for cloudy weather and
+a blue one for rain.
+
+I brought away from this village a calendar of agricultural operations
+with poems or mottoes for each month, in the collection of which I
+suspect the poet had a hand:
+
+_January_: Future of the day determined in the morning.
+
+_February_: The voice of one reading a farming book coming
+  from the snow-covered window.
+
+_March_: Grafting these young trees, thinking of the days
+  of my grandchildren.
+
+_April_: Digging the soil of the paddy field, sincerity
+  concentrated on the edge of the mattock.
+
+_May_: Returning home with the dim moonlight glinting
+  on the edges of our mattocks.
+
+_June_: Boundless wealth stored up by gracious heaven:
+  dig it out with your mattock, take it away with your
+  sickle.
+
+_July_: Weeding the paddy field[132] in a happiness and
+  contentment which townspeople do not know.
+
+_August_: Standing peasant worthier than resting rich man.
+
+_September_: Ears of rice bend their heads as they ripen.
+  (An allusion to wisdom and meekness.)
+
+_October_: White steam coming out of a manure house on
+ an autumn morning.
+
+_November_: Moon clear and bright above neatly divided
+  paddy fields.
+
+_December_: All the members of the family smiling and
+  celebrating the year's end, piling up many bales of rice.
+
+In this district I first noticed cotton. It is sown in June and is
+picked from time to time between early September and early November.
+Cotton has been grown for centuries in Japan, but nowadays it is
+produced for household weaving only, the needs of the factories being
+met by foreign imports. The plant has a beautiful yellow flower with a
+dark brown eye.
+
+In one village I asked how many people smoked. The answer was 60 per
+cent. of the men and 10 per cent. of the women. In the same village,
+which did not seem particularly well off, I was told that 200 daily
+papers might be taken among 1,300 families. Eighty per cent. of the
+local papers were dailies and cost 35 sen a month. Tokyo papers cost
+45 or 50 sen a month.
+
+I visited a school, half of which was in a building adjoining a temple
+and half in the temple itself. In the same county there were two other
+schools housed in temples. The small Shinto shrine in this temple held
+the Imperial Rescript on education. On one side of it was an ugly
+American clock and on the other a thermometer. In the temple (Zen) two
+Tokyo University students were staying in ideal conditions for
+vacation study.
+
+I saw at one place a very tired, unslept-looking peasant with a small
+closed tub carried over his shoulder by means of a pole. On the tub
+was tied a white streamer, such as is supplied at a Shinto shrine, and
+a branch of _sakaki_ (_Eurya ochnacea_, the sacred tree). The
+traveller was the delegate of his village. He had been to a mountain
+shrine in the next prefecture and the tub held the water he had got
+there. The idea is that if he succeeds in making the journey home
+without stopping anywhere his efforts will result in rain coming down
+at his village. If he should stop at any place to rest or sleep, and
+there should be the slightest drip from his tub there, then the rain
+will be procured not for his own village but for the community in
+which he has tarried. So our voyager had walked not only for a whole
+day but through the night. I heard of a rain delegate who had stamina
+enough to keep walking for three or four days without sleeping.
+
+Another way of obtaining rain has principally to do with tugging at a
+rock with a straw rope. Then there is the plan already referred to of
+tying straw ropes to a stone image and flinging it into the river,
+saying, "If you don't give us rain you will stay there; if you do give
+us rain you shall come out." There is also the method of paying
+someone liberally to throw the split open head of an ox into the deep
+pool of a waterfall. "Then the water god being much angry," said my
+informant, "he send his dragon to that village, so storm and rain come
+necessarily." Yet another plan is for the villagers simply to ascend
+to a particular mountain top crying, "Give us rain! Give us rain!"
+While dealing with these magic arts I may reproduce the following
+rendering of a printed "fortune" which I received from a rural shrine:
+"Wish to agree but now somewhat difficult. Wait patiently for a while.
+Do nothing wrong. Wait for the spring to come. Everything will be
+completed and will become better. Endeavouring to accomplish it soon
+will be fruitless."
+
+It was a student of agricultural conditions, in Toyama who gossiped to
+me of the large expenditure by farmers of that prefecture on the
+marriage of their daughters. "It is not so costly as the boys'
+education and it procures a good reception for the girl from
+father-and mother-in-law. The pinch comes when there is a second and
+third daughter, for the average balance in hand of a peasant
+proprietor in this prefecture at the end of the year is only 48 yen.
+Borrowing is necessary and I heard of one bankruptcy. The Governor
+tried to stop the custom but it is too old. They say Toyama people
+spend more proportionately than the people in other prefectures. In
+general they do not keep a horse or ox. I heard of young farmers
+stealing each other's crops. Parents are very severe upon a daughter
+who becomes ill-famed, for when they seek a husband for her they must
+spend more. So mostly daughters keep their purity before marriage. But
+I know parts of Japan where a large number of the girls have ceased to
+be virtuous. Concerning the priests, those of Toyama are the worst. A
+peasant proprietor with seven of a family and a balance at the end of
+the year of 100 yen must pay 30 to 40 yen to the temple. Some priests
+threaten the farmer, saying that if he does not pay as much as is
+imposed on him by the collector an inferior Buddha will go past his
+door. Priests want to keep farmers foolish as long as they can."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[130] For prices of land, see Appendix LIV.
+
+[131] There are about 116,000 Shinto shrines of all grades and 14,000
+priests, and 71,000 temples and 51,000 priests. There are about a
+dozen Shinto sects and about thirty Buddhist sects and sub-sects.
+
+[132] It is done by wading in leech-infested water under a burning sun
+and pulling out the weeds by hand and pushing them down into the
+sludge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE NUN'S CELL
+
+(NAGANO)
+
+It is one more incitement to a man to do well.--BOSWELL
+
+
+Eighty per cent. of Nagano is slope. Hence its dependence on
+sericulture. The low stone-strewn roofs of the houses, the railway
+snow shelters and the zig-zag track which the train takes, hint at the
+climatic conditions in winter time. Despite the snow--ski-ing has been
+practised for some years--the summer climate of Nagano has been
+compared with that of Champagne and there is one vineyard of 60,000
+vines.
+
+I was invited to join a circle of administrators who were discussing
+rural morality and religion. One man said that there was not 20 per
+cent. of the villages in which the priests were "active for social
+development." Another speaker of experience declared that "the four
+pillars of an agricultural village" were "the _sonchō_ (headman), the
+schoolmaster, the policeman and the most influential villager." He
+went on: "In Europe religion does many things for the support and
+development of morality, but we look to education, for it aims not at
+only developing intelligence and giving knowledge, but at teaching
+virtue and honesty. But there is something beyond that. Thousands of
+our soldiers died willingly in the Russian war. There must have been
+something at the bottom of their hearts. That something is a certain
+sentiment which penetrates deeply the characters of our countrymen.
+Our morality and customs have it in their foundations. This spirit is
+_Yamato damashii_ (Japanese spirit). It appeared among our warriors as
+_bushido_ (the way of the soldier), but it is not the monopoly of
+soldiers. Every Japanese has some of this spirit. It is the moral
+backbone of Japan."
+
+"I should like to say," another speaker declared, "that I read many
+European and American books, but I remain Japanese. Mr. Uchimura sees
+the darkest side of Buddhism and Mr. Lafcadio Hearn expected too much
+from it. 'So mysterious,' Hearn said, but it is not so mysterious to
+us. We must be grateful to him for seeing something of the essence of
+our life. Sometimes, however, we may be ashamed of his beautifying
+sentences. I am a modern man, but I am not ashamed when my wife is
+with child to pray that it may be healthy and wise. It is possible for
+us Japanese to worship some god somewhere without knowing why. The
+poet says, 'I do not know the reason of it, but tears fall down from
+my eyes in reverence and gratitude.' I suppose this is natural
+theology. The proverb says, 'Even the head of a sardine is something
+if believed in.' I attach more importance to a man's attitude to
+something higher than himself than to the thing which is revered by
+him. Whether a man goes to Nara and Kyoto or to a Roman Catholic or a
+Methodist church he can come home very purified in heart."
+
+"Some foreigners have thought well to call us 'half civilised,'" the
+speaker went on. "Can it be that uncivilised is something distasteful
+to or not understood by Europeans and Americans? We have the ambition
+to erect some system of Eastern civilisation. It is possible that we
+may have it in our minds to call some things in Europe 'half
+civilised.' Surely the barbarians are usually the people other than
+ourselves. When the townsman goes to the country he says the people
+are savages. But the countryman finds his fellow-savages quite decent
+people."
+
+"Some time ago," broke in a professor, "I read a novel by René Bazin
+and I could not but think how much alike were our peasants and the
+peasants of the West."
+
+The previous speaker resumed: "The other day a foreigner laughed in my
+presence at our old art of incense burning and actually said that we
+were deficient in the sense of smell. I told him that fifty years ago
+our samurai class, in excusing their anti-foreign manifestations,
+said they could not endure the smell of foreigners, and that to this
+day our peasants may be heard to say of Western people, 'They smell;
+they smell of butter and fat.'"
+
+In the city of Nagano early in the morning I went to a large Buddhist
+temple where the authorities had kindly given me special facilities to
+see the treasures--alas! all in a wooden structure. A strange thing
+was the preservation untouched of the room in which the Emperor Meiji
+rested thirty years ago. May oblivion be one day granted to that awful
+chenille table cover and those appalling chairs which outrage the
+beautiful woodwork and the golden _tatami_ of a great building! At the
+entrance of the temple priests in a kind of open office were reading
+the newspaper, playing _gō_ or smoking. More pleasing was the sight of
+matting spread right round the temple below its eaves, in order that
+weary pilgrims might sleep there, and the spectacle of travel-stained
+women tranquilly sleeping or suckling their infants before the shrine
+itself. There is a pitch dark underground passage below the floor
+round the foundations of the great Buddha, and if the circuit be made
+and the lock communicating with the entrance door to the sacred figure
+be fortunately touched on the way, paradise, peasants believe, is
+assured. I made the circuit a few moments after an old woman and found
+the lock, and on returning to the temple with the rustic dame knelt
+with her before the shrine as the curtain which veils the big Buddha
+was withdrawn. The face of one wooden figure in the temple had been
+worn, like that of many another in Japan, with the stroking that it
+had received from the ailing faithful.
+
+[Illustration: IN A BUDDHIST NUNNERY.]
+
+[Illustration: GRASS-CUTTING TOOLS COMPARED WITH A WESTERN SCYTHE.]
+
+I had the privilege of visiting the adjoining nunnery. As I was
+specially favoured by a general admission, I asked to be permitted to
+see some nuns' cells. They showed a Buddhist advance on Western ideas.
+The word "cells" was a misnomer for beautiful little flower-adorned
+rooms of a cheerful Japanese house. The fragile, wistful nun who was
+so kind as to speak with me had a consecrated expression. Her dress
+was white, and over it was brocade in a perfect combination of green
+and cream. Her head was shaven; her hands, which continually told
+her beads, were hidden. Religious services are conducted and sermons
+are delivered here and in other nunneries by the nuns themselves. I
+could not but be sorry for some girl children who had become nuns on
+their relatives' or guardians' decision. Adult newcomers are given a
+month in which, if they wish, they may repent them of their vows; but
+what of the children? The head of this nunnery was a member of the
+Imperial family. The institution, like the temple from which I had
+just come, stores thousands of wooden tablets to the memory of the
+dead. There are many little receptacles in which the hair, the teeth
+or the photographs of believers are preserved. I found that both at
+the nunnery and the temple a practical interest was being shown in the
+reformation of ex-criminals.
+
+[Illustration: THE CHILD-COLLECTORS OF VILLAGERS' SAVINGS.]
+
+[Illustration: NUNS PHOTOGRAPHED IN A "CELL" BY THE AUTHOR.]
+
+[Illustration: STUDENTS' STUDY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL.]
+
+While in the highlands of Nagano I spent a night at Karuizawa, a hill
+resort at which tired missionaries and their families, not only from
+all parts of Japan but from China, gather in the summer months beyond
+the reach of the mosquito.[133] I stayed in the summer cottage of my
+travelling companion's brother-in-law. The family consisted of a
+reserved, cultivated man with a pretty wife of what I have heard a
+foreigner call "the maternal, domestic type." In their owlishness
+newcomers to the country are inclined to commiserate all Japanese
+housewives as the "slaves of their husbands." They would have been
+sadly wrong in such thoughts about this happy wife and mother. The
+eldest boy, a wholesome-looking lad, had just passed through the
+middle school on his way to the university, and spoke to me in simple
+English with that air of responsibility which the eldest son so soon
+acquires in Japan. His brothers and sisters enjoyed a happy relation
+with him and with each other. The whole family was merry, unselfish
+and, in the best sense of the word, educated. As we knelt on our
+_zabuton_ we refreshed ourselves with tea and the fine view of the
+active volcano, Asama, and chatted on schools, holidays, books, the
+country and religion. After a while, a little to my surprise, the
+mother in her sweet voice gravely said that if I would not mind at all
+she would like very much to ask me two questions. The first was, "Are
+the people who go to the Christian church here all Christians?" and
+the second, "Are Christians as affectionate as Japanese?"
+
+Karuizawa, which is full of ill-nourished, scabby-headed,
+"bubbly-nosed"[134] Japanese children, is an impoverished place on one
+of the ancient highways. We took ourselves along the road until we
+reached at a slightly higher altitude the decayed village of Oiwaké.
+When the railway came near it finished the work of desolation which
+the cessation of the daimyos' progresses to Yedo (now Tokyo) had begun
+half a century ago. In the days of the Shogun three-quarters of the
+300 houses were inns. Now two-thirds of the houses have become
+uninhabitable, or have been sold, taken down and rebuilt elsewhere.
+The Shinto shrines are neglected and some are unroofed, the Zen temple
+is impoverished, the school is comfortless and a thousand tombstones
+in the ancient burying ground among the trees are half hidden in moss
+and undergrowth.
+
+The farm rents now charged in Oiwaké had not been changed for thirty,
+forty or fifty years. In the old inn there was a Shinto shrine, about
+12 ft. long by nearly 2 ft. deep, with latticed sliding doors. It
+contained a dusty collection of charms and memorials dating back for
+generations. Outside in the garden at the spring I found an irregular
+row of half a dozen rather dejected-looking little stone _hokora_
+about a foot high. Some had faded _gohei_ thrust into them, but from
+the others the clipped paper strips had blown away. At the foot of the
+garden I discovered a somewhat elaborate wooden shrine in a
+dilapidated state. "Few country people," someone said to me, "know who
+is enshrined at such a place." It is generally thought that these
+shrines are dedicated to the fox. But the foxes are merely the
+messengers of the shrine, as is shown by the figures of crouching or
+squatting foxes at either side. A well-known professor lately arrived
+at the conviction that the god worshipped at such shrines is the god
+of agriculture. He went so far as to recommend the faculty of
+agriculture at Tokyo university to have a shrine erected within its
+walls to this divinity, but the suggestion was not adopted.
+
+In the course of another chat with the old host of the inn he referred
+to the time, close on half a century ago, when 3,000 hungry peasants
+marched through the district demanding rice. They did no harm. "They
+were satisfied when they were given food; the peasants at that time
+were heavily oppressed." To-day the people round about look as if they
+were oppressed by the ghosts of old-time tyrants. But there is
+"something that doth linger" of self-respect. When we left on our way
+to Tokyo I gave the man who brought our bags a mile in a barrow to the
+station 40 sen. He returned 10 sen, saying that 30 sen was enough.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[133] Although, as has been seen, the rural problems under
+investigation in this book are inextricably bound up with religion,
+limits of space make it necessary to reserve for another volume the
+consideration of the large and complex question of missionary work.
+
+[134] As to the "bubbly-nosed callant," to quote the description given
+of young Smollett, nasal unpleasantness seems to be popularly regarded
+as a sign of health. The constant sight of it is one of the minor
+discomforts of travel.
+
+
+
+
+IN AND OUT OF THE SILK PREFECTURE[135]
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+PROBLEMS BEHIND THE PICTURESQUE
+
+(SAITAMA, GUMMA, NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)
+
+A foreigner who comes among us without prejudice may speak his
+mind freely.--GOLDSMITH
+
+
+I went back to Nagano to visit the silk industrial regions. My route
+lay through the prefectures of Saitama and Gumma. I left Tokyo on the
+last day of June. Many farmers were threshing their barley. On the
+dry-land patches, where the grain crop had been harvested, soya bean,
+sown between the rows of grain long before harvest, was becoming
+bushier now that it was no longer overshadowed. Maize in most places
+was about a foot high, but where it had been sown early was already
+twice that height. The sweet potato had been planted out from its
+nursery bed for weeks. Here and there were small crops of tea which
+had been severely picked for its second crop. I noticed melons,
+cucumbers and squashes, and patches of the serviceable burdock. Many
+paddy farmers had water areas devoted to lotus, but the big floating
+leaves were not yet illumined by the mysterious beauty of the
+honey-scented flowers.
+
+In order to imagine the scene on the rice flats, the reader must not
+think of the glistering paddy fields[136] as stretching in an unbroken
+monotonous series over the plain. Occasionally a rocky patch,
+outcropping from the paddy tract, made a little island of wood.
+Sometimes it was a sacred grove in which one caught a glimpse of a
+Shinto shrine or the head stones of the dead. Sometimes there was a
+little clump of cropped tree greenery which kept a farmhouse cool in
+summer and, at another time of the year, sheltered from the wind. Few
+householders were too poor or too busy to be without their little
+patch of flowers.
+
+Before the train climbed out of the Kwanto plain temperature of not
+far below 100° F. the planting of rice seemed to be almost an enviable
+occupation. The peasant had his great umbrella-shaped straw hat,
+sometimes an armful of green stuff tied on his back, and a delicious
+feeling of being up to the knees in water or mud on a hot day-one
+recalled the mud baths of the West-when the alternative was walking on
+a dusty road, digging on the sun-baked upland or perspiring in a house
+or the train.
+
+With the rise in the level a few mulberries began to appear and
+gradually they occupied a large part of the holdings. Sometimes the
+mulberries were cultivated as shoots from a stump a little above
+ground level, and sometimes as a kind of small standard. As mulberry
+culture increased, the silk factories' whitewashed cocoon stores and
+the tall red and black iron chimneys of the factories themselves
+became more numerous. It is a pity that the silk factory is not always
+so innocent-looking inside as the pure white exterior of its stores
+might suggest. It is certain that the overworked girl operatives,
+sitting at their steaming basins, drawing the silk from the soaked
+cocoons, were glad to find the weather conditions such that they could
+have the sides of their reeling sheds removed.
+
+At many of the railway stations there were stacks of large, round,
+flat bean cakes, for the farmer feeds his "cake" to his fields direct,
+not through the medium of cattle. Although a paddy receives less
+agreeable nutritive materials than bean cake, the extensive use of
+this cake must be comforting to a little school of rural reformers in
+the West. These ardent vegetarians have refused to listen to the
+allegation that vegetarianism was impossible because without
+meat-eating there would be no cattle and therefore no nitrogen for the
+fields.
+
+It was not only the bean cakes at the stations which caught my
+attention but the extensive use of lime. Square miles of paddy field
+were white with powdered lime, scattered before the planting of the
+rice, an operation which in the higher altitudes would not be finished
+until well on in July.
+
+A contented and prosperous countryside was no doubt the impression
+reflected to many passengers in the train that sunny day. But I knew
+how closely pressed the farmers had been by the rise in prices of many
+things that they had got into the way of needing. I had learnt, too,
+the part that superstition[137] as well as simple faith played in the
+lives of the country folk. When, however, I pondered the way in which
+the rural districts had been increasingly invaded by factories run
+under the commercial sanctions of our eighteen-forties, I asked myself
+whether there might not be superstitions of the economic world as well
+as of religious and social life.
+
+I heard a Japanese speak of being well treated at inns in the old days
+for 20 sen a night. It should be remembered, however, that there is a
+system not only of tipping inn servants but of tipping the inn. The
+gift to the inn is called _chadai_ and guests are expected to offer a
+sum which has some relation to their position and means and the food
+and treatment they expect. I have stayed at inns where I have paid as
+much _chadai_ as bill. To pay 50 per cent. of the bill as _chadai_ is
+common. The idea behind _chadai_ is that the inn-keeper charges only
+his out-of-pocket expenses and that therefore the guest naturally
+desires to requite him. In acknowledgment of _chadai_ the inn-keeper
+brings a gift to the guest at his departure--fans, pottery, towels,
+picture postcards, fruit or slabs of stiff acidulated fruit jelly (in
+one inn of grapes and in another of plums) laid between strips of
+maize leaf. The right time to give _chadai_ is on entering the hotel,
+after the "welcome tea." In handing money to any person in Japan,
+except a porter or a _kurumaya_, the cash or notes are wrapped in
+paper.
+
+On the journey from the city of Nagano to Matsumoto, wonderful views
+were unfolded of terraced rice fields, and, above these, of terraced
+fields of mulberry. How many hundred feet high the terraces rose as
+the train climbed the hills I do not know, but I have had no more
+vivid impression of the triumphs of agricultural hydraulic
+engineering. We were seven minutes in passing through one tunnel at a
+high elevation.
+
+I spoke in the train with a man who had a dozen _chō_ under grapes, 20
+per cent. being European varieties and 80 per cent. American. He said
+that some of the people in his district were "very poor." Some farmers
+had made money in sericulture too quickly for it to do them good. He
+volunteered the opinion, in contrast with the statement made to me
+during our journey to Niigata, that the people of the plains were
+morally superior to the people of the mountains. The reason he gave
+was that "there are many recreations in the plains whereas in the
+mountains there is only one." In most of the mountain villages he knew
+three-quarters of the young men had relations with women, mostly with
+the girls of the village or the adjoining village. He would not make
+the same charge against more than ten per cent. of the young men of
+the plains, and "it is after all with teahouse girls." He thought that
+there were "too many temples and too many sects, so the priests are
+starved."
+
+An itinerant agricultural instructor in sericulture who joined in our
+conversation was not much concerned by the plight of the priests. "The
+causes of goodness in our people," he said, "are family tradition and
+home training. Candidly, we believe our morals are not so bad on the
+whole. We are now putting most stress on economic development. How to
+maintain their families is the question that troubles people most.
+With that question unsolved it is preaching to a horse to preach
+morality. We can always find high ideals and good leaders when
+economic conditions improve. The development of morality is our final
+aim, but it is encouraged for six years at the primary school. The
+child learns that if it does bad things it will be laughed at and
+despised by the neighbours and scolded by its parents. We are busy
+with the betterment of economic conditions and questions about
+morality and religion puzzle us."
+
+When I reached Matsumoto I met a rural dignitary who deplored the
+increasing tendency of city men to invest in rural property.
+"Sometimes when a peasant sells his land he sets up as a
+money-lender." I was told that nearly every village had a sericultural
+co-operative association, which bought manures, mulberry trees and
+silk-worm eggs, dried cocoons and hatched eggs for its members and
+spent money on the destruction of rats. Of recent years the county
+agricultural association had given 5 yen per _tan_ to farmers who
+planted improved sorts of mulberry. About half the farmers in the
+county had manure houses. Some 800 farmers in the county kept a
+labourer.
+
+I went to see a _gunchō_ and read on his wall: "Do not get angry.
+Work! Do not be in a hurry, yet do not be lazy." "These being my
+faults," he explained, "I specially wrote them out." There was also on
+his wall a _kakemono_ reading: "At twenty I found that even a plain
+householder may influence the future of his province; at thirty that
+he may influence the future of his nation; at forty that he may
+influence the future of the whole world." Below this stirring
+sentiment was a portrait of the writer, a samurai scholar, from a
+photograph taken with a camera which he had made himself. He lived in
+the last period of the Shogunate and studied Dutch books. He was
+killed by an assassin at the instance, it was believed, of the Shogun.
+
+One of the noteworthy things of Matsumoto was the agricultural
+association's market. Another piece of organisation in that part of
+the world was fourteen institutes where girls were instructed in the
+work of silk factory hands. The teachers' salaries were paid by the
+factories. So were also the expenses of the silk experts of the local
+authorities. On the day I left the city the daily paper contained an
+announcement of lectures on hygiene to women on three successive days,
+"the chief of police to be present." This paper was demanding the
+exemption of students from the bicycle tax, the rate of which varies
+in different prefectures.
+
+A young man was brought to see me who was specialising in musk melons.
+He said that the Japanese are gradually getting out of their
+partiality for unripe fruit.
+
+On our way to the Suwas we saw many wretched dwellings. The feature
+of the landscape was the silk factories' tall iron chimneys,
+ordinarily black though sometimes red, white or blue.
+
+It is not commonly understood that Japanese lads by the time they
+"graduate" from the middle school into the higher school have had some
+elementary military training. A higher-school youth knows how to
+handle a rifle and has fired twice at a target. At Kami Suwa the
+problem of how middle-class boys should procure economical lodging
+while attending their classes had been solved by self-help. An
+ex-scholar of twenty had managed to borrow 4,000 yen and had proceeded
+to build on a hillside a dormitory accommodating thirty-six boarders.
+Lads did the work of levelling the ground and digging the well. The
+frugal lines on which the lodging-house was conducted by the lads
+themselves may be judged from the fact that 5 yen a month covered
+everything. Breakfast consisted of rice, _miso_ soup and pickles.
+Cooking and the emptying of the _benjo_[138] were done by the lads in
+turn. A kitchen garden was run by common effort. Among the many
+notices on the walls was one giving the names of the residents who
+showed up at 5 o'clock in the morning for a cold bath and fencing. I
+also saw the following instruction written by the founder of the
+house, which is read aloud every morning by each resident in turn:
+
+Be independent and pure and strive to make your characters more
+beautiful. Expand your thought. Help each other to accomplish your
+ambitions. Be active and steady and do not lose your self-control. Be
+faithful to friends and righteous and polite. Be silent and keep
+order. Do not be luxurious (_sic_). Keep everything clean. Pay
+attention to sanitation. Do not neglect physical exercises. Be
+diligent and develop your intelligence.
+
+The borrower of the 4,000 yen with which the institution was built
+managed to pay it back within seven years with interest, out of the
+subscriptions of residents and ex-residents.
+
+An agricultural authority whom I met spoke of "farming families
+living from hand to mouth and their land slipping into the possession
+of landlords"; also of a fifth of the peasants in the prefecture being
+tenants. A young novelist who had been wandering about the Suwa
+district had been impressed by the grim realities of life in poor
+farmers' homes and cited facts on which he based a low view of rural
+morality.
+
+Suwa Lake lies more than 3,500 ft. above sea level and in winter is
+covered with skaters. The country round about is remarkable
+agriculturally for the fact that many farmers are able to lead into
+their paddies not only warm water from the hot springs but water from
+ammonia springs, so economising considerably in their expenditure on
+manure. A simple windmill for lifting the fertilising water is sold
+for only 4 yen.
+
+We went to Kōfu, the capital of Yamanashi prefecture, through many
+mountain tunnels and ravines. Entrancing is the just word for this
+region in the vicinity of the Alps. But joy in the beauty through
+which we passed is tinged for the student of rural life by thoughts of
+the highlander's difficulties in getting a living in spots where quiet
+streams may become in a few hours ungovernable torrents. I remember
+glimpses of grapes and persimmons, of parties of middle-school boys
+tramping out their holiday--every inn reduces its terms for them--and
+of half a dozen peasant girls bathing in a shaded stream. But there
+were less pleasing scenes: hills deforested and paddies wrecked by a
+waste of stones and gravel flung over them in time of flood. Here and
+there the indomitable farmers, counting on the good behaviour of the
+river for a season or two, were endeavouring, with enormous labour, to
+resume possession of what had been their own. The spectacle
+illustrated at once their spirit and their industry and their need of
+land. At night we slept at Kōfu at "the inn of greeting peaks." In the
+morning a Governor with imagination told me of the prefecture's
+gallant enterprises in afforestation and river embanking at
+expenditures which were almost crippling.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[135] The three leading silk prefectures are in order: Nagano,
+Fukushima and Gumma.
+
+[136] At this time of the year, when the rice plants are small, the
+water in the paddies is still conspicuous.
+
+[137] An old Japan hand once counselled me that "the thing to find out
+in sociological enquiries is not people's religions but their
+superstitions."
+
+[138] See Appendix IV.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE BIRTH, BRIDAL AND DEATH OF THE SILK-WORM
+
+(NAGANO)
+
+The mulberry leaf knoweth not that it shall be silk.--_Arab proverb_
+
+
+One acre in every dozen in Japan produces mulberry leaves for feeding
+the silk-worms which two million farming families--more than a third
+of the farming families of the country--painstakingly rear.
+
+But the mulberry is not the only mark of a sericultural district. Its
+mark may be seen in the tall chimneys of the factories and in the
+structure of the farmers' houses. Breeders of silk-worms are often
+well enough off to have tiled instead of thatched roofs; they have
+frequently two storeys to their dwellings; and they have almost always
+a roof ventilator so that the vitiated air from the _hibachi_-heated
+silk-worm chambers may be carried off. Yet another sign of sericulture
+being a part of the agricultural activities of a district is its
+prosperity. Silk-worms produce the most valuable of all Japanese
+exports. Japan sends abroad more raw silk than any other country.[139]
+
+It is in the middle of the country that sericulture chiefly nourishes.
+The smallest output of raw silk is from the most northerly prefecture
+and from the prefecture in the extreme south-west of the mainland. But
+human aptitude plays its part as well as climate. The Japanese hand is
+a wonderful piece of mechanism--look at the hands of the next Japanese
+you meet--and in sericulture its delicate touch is used to the utmost
+advantage.
+
+The gains of sericulture are not made without corresponding
+sacrifices. Silk-worm raising is infinitely laborious. The constant
+picking of leaves, the bringing of them home and the chopping and
+supplying of these leaves to the smallest of all live stock and the
+maintenance of a proper temperature in the rearing-chamber day and
+night mean unending work. The silk-worms may not be fed less than four
+or five times in the day; in their early life they are fed seven or
+eight times. This is the feeding system for spring caterpillars.
+Summer and autumn breeds must have two or three more meals. The men
+and women who attend to them, particularly the women, are worn out by
+the end of the season. "The women have only three hours' rest in the
+twenty-four hours," I remember someone saying. "They never loose their
+_obi_."
+
+When the caterpillars emerge from the tiny, pin-head-like eggs of the
+silk-worm moth they are minute creatures. Therefore the mulberry
+leaves are chopped very fine indeed. They are chopped less and less
+fine as the silk-worms grow, until finally whole leaves and leaves
+adhering to the shoots are given. Some rearers are skilful enough to
+supply from the very beginning leaves or leaves still on the shoots.
+The caterpillars live in bamboo trays or "beds" on racks. In the house
+of one farmer I found caterpillars about three-quarters of an inch
+long occupying fifteen trays. When the silk-worms grew larger they
+would occupy two hundred trays.
+
+The eggs, when not produced on the farm, are bought adhering to cards
+about a foot square. There are usually marked on these cards
+twenty-eight circles about 2 ins. in diameter. Each circle is covered
+with eggs. The eggs come to be arranged in these convenient circles
+because, as will be explained later on, the moths have been induced to
+lay within bottomless round tins placed on the circles on the cards.
+The eggs are sticky when laid and therefore adhere. In a year
+35,000,000 cards, containing about a billion eggs, are produced on
+some 10,000 egg-raising farms.
+
+The eggs--they are called "seed"--are hatched in the spring (end of
+April--as soon as the first leaves of the mulberry are available--to
+the middle of May), summer (June and July) and autumn (August and
+October). It takes from three to seven days--according to
+temperature--for the "seed" to hatch, and from twenty to thirty-two
+days--according to temperature--for the silk-worms to reach maturity.
+Half the hatching is done in spring. In one farmer's house I visited
+in the spring season I found that he had hatched fifty cards of
+"seed." From the birth of the caterpillars to the formation of cocoons
+the casualties must be reckoned at ten per cent. daily. Not more than
+eighty-five per cent. of the cocoons which are produced are of good
+quality. The remainder are misshapen or contain dead chrysalises. As
+there are more than a thousand breeds of silk-worm, all cocoons are
+not of the same shape and colour. Some are oval; some are shaped like
+a monkey nut. Most are white but some are yellow and others yellow
+tinted.
+
+In the whole world of stock raising there is nothing more remarkable
+than the birth of silk-worm moths. The cocoons on the racks in the
+farmer's loft are covered by sheets of newspaper in which a number of
+round holes about three-quarters of an inch in diameter have been cut.
+When the moths emerge from their cocoons they seek these openings
+towards the light and creep through to the upper side of the
+newspaper. For newly born things they come up through these openings
+with astonishing ardour. In body and wings the moths are flour white.
+White garments are suitable for the babe, the bride and the dead, and
+the moth perfected in the cocoon is arrayed not only for its birth but
+for bridal and death, which come upon it in swift succession. The male
+as well as the female is in white and is distinguishable by being
+somewhat smaller in size. On the newspaper the few males who have not
+found partners are executing wild dances, their wings whirring the
+while at a mad pace. When from time to time they cease dancing they
+haunt the holes in the paper through which the newly born moths
+emerge. When a female appears a male instantly rushes towards her, or
+rather the two creatures rush towards one another, and they are at
+once locked in a fast embrace. Immediately their wings cease to
+flutter, the only commotion on the newspaper being made by the unmated
+males. In a hatching-room these males on the stacks of trays are so
+numerous that the place is filled with the sound of the whirring of
+their wings. The down flies from their wings to such an extent that
+one continually sneezes. The spectacle of the stacks of trays covered
+by these ecstatic moths is remarkable, but still more remarkable is
+the thrilling sense of the power of the life-force in a supposedly low
+form of consciousness.
+
+The wonder of the scene is missed, no doubt, by most of those who are
+habituated to it. From time to time weary, stolid-looking girls or old
+women lift down the trays and run their hands over them in order to
+pick up superfluous male moths. Sometimes the male moths are walking
+about the newspaper, sometimes they are torn callously from the
+embrace of their mates. The fate of the male moths is to be flung into
+a basket where they stay until the next day, when perhaps some of them
+may be mated again. The novice is impressed not only by the
+ruthlessness of this treatment but by the way in which the whole loft
+is littered by male moths which have fallen or have been flung on the
+floor and are being trampled on.
+
+The female moths, when their partners have been removed, are taken
+downstairs in newspapers in order to be put into the little tin
+receptacles where the eggs are to be laid. On a tray there are spread
+out a number of egg cards with, as before mentioned, twenty-eight
+printed circles on each of them. On these circles are placed the
+twenty-eight half-inch-high bottomless enclosures of tin. Some one
+takes up a handful of moths and scatters them over the tins. Some of
+the moths fall neatly into a tin apiece. Others are helped into the
+little enclosures in which, to do them credit, they are only too
+willing to take up their quarters. The curious thing is the way in
+which each moth settles down within her ring. Indeed from the moment
+of her emergence from the cocoon until now she has never used her
+wings to fly. Nor did the male moth seem to wish to fly. The sexes
+concentrate their whole attention on mating. After that the female
+thinks of nothing but laying eggs. Almost immediately after she is
+placed within her little tin she begins to deposit eggs, and within a
+few hours the circle of the card is covered.
+
+Food is given neither to the females nor to the males. Those which are
+not kept in reserve for possible use on the second day are flung out
+of doors. When the female moth has deposited her eggs she also is
+destroyed.[140] The _shoji_ of the breeding and egg-laying rooms
+permit only of a diffused light. The discarded moths are cast out into
+the brilliant sunshine where they are eaten by poultry or are left to
+die and serve as manure.
+
+Sericulture is always a risky business. There is first the risk of a
+fall in prices. Just before I reached Japan prices were so low that
+many people despaired of being able to continue the business, and
+shortly after I left there was a crisis in the silk trade in which
+numbers of silk factories failed. At the time I was last in a
+silk-worm farmer's house cocoons were worth from 5 to 6 yen per _kwan_
+of 8-1/4 lbs. From 8 to 10 _kwan_ of cocoons could be expected from a
+single egg card. Eggs were considered to be at a high price when they
+were more than 2 yen per card. The risks of the farmer are increased
+when he launches out and buys mulberry leaves to supplement those
+produced on his own land. Sometimes the price of leaves is so high
+that farmers throw away some of their silk-worms. The risks run by the
+man who grows mulberries beyond his own leaf requirements on the
+chance of selling are also considerable.
+
+Beyond the risk of falling prices or of a short mulberry crop there is
+in sericulture the risk of disease. One advantage of the system in
+which the eggs are laid in circles on the cards instead of all over
+them is that if any disease should be detected the affected areas can
+be easily cut out with a knife and destroyed. Disease is so serious a
+matter that silk-worm breeding, as contrasted with silk-worm raising,
+is restricted to those who have obtained licences. The silk-worm
+breeder is not only licensed. His silkworms, cocoons and mother moths
+are all in turn officially examined. Breeding "seeds" were laid one
+year by about 33,000,000 odd moths; common "seeds" by about
+948,000,000.
+
+Of recent years enormous progress has been made in combating disease.
+I have spoken of how a silk-worm district may be recognised by the
+structure of the farmhouses and the prosperity of the farmers, but
+another striking sign of sericulture is the trays and mats lying in
+the sun in front of farmers' dwellings or on the hot stones of the
+river banks in order to get thoroughly purified from germs. It is
+illustrative of the progress that has been made under scientific
+influence, that whereas twenty years ago a sericulturist would reckon
+on losing his silk-worm harvest completely once in five years, such a
+loss is now rare. Scientific instructors have their difficulties in
+Japan as in the rural districts of other countries, but the people
+respect authority, and they are accustomed to accept instruction given
+in the form of directions. Also the Japanese have an unending interest
+in the new thing. Further, there is a continual desire to excel for
+the national advantage and in emulation of the foreigner. The advance
+in scientific knowledge in the rural districts is remarkable, because
+it is in such contrast with the primitive lives of the country people.
+Picture the surprise of British or American farmers were they brought
+face to face with thermometers, electric light and a working knowledge
+of bacteriology in the houses of peasants in breech clouts.
+
+It was while I was trying to learn something of the sericultural
+industry that I had the opportunity of visiting a noteworthy
+institution. It is noteworthy, among other reasons, because I seldom
+met a foreigner in Japan who knew of its existence. It is the great
+Ueda Sericultural College in the prefecture of Nagano. I was struck
+not only by its extent but by its systematised efficiency. On a level
+with the director's eyes was a motto in large lettering, "Be diligent.
+Develop your virtues."
+
+[Illustration: TEACHERS OF A VILLAGE SCHOOL.]
+
+[Illustration: GIRLS CARRYING BALES OF RICE.]
+
+[Illustration: SERICULTURAL SCHOOL STUDENTS.]
+
+The Institute devotes itself to mulberries, silk-worms and silk
+manufacture. There are 200 students, as many as it will hold. The
+young men become teachers of sericulture, advisers in mills and
+experts of co-operative sericultural societies. The institution, in
+addition to the fees it receives and its earnings from its own
+products, some 33,000 yen in all, has an annual Government subsidy of
+about 114,000 yen. There are other sericultural colleges doing similar
+work in Tokyo and Kyoto, and there is also in the capital the Imperial
+Sericultural Experiment Station (with a staff of 87), where I saw
+all sorts of research work in progress. This experiment station has
+half a dozen branches scattered up and down the silk districts.
+
+[Illustration: SOME OF THE SILK FACTORIES IN KAMISUWA.]
+
+[Illustration: VILLAGE ASSEMBLY-ROOM.]
+
+At Ueda I went through corridors and rooms, sterilised thrice a year,
+to visit professors engaged in a variety of enquiries. One professor
+had turned into a kind of beef tea the pupæ thrown away when the
+cocoons are unwound; another had made from the residual oil two or
+three kinds of soap. The usual thing at a silk factory is for the
+pupæ, which are exposed to view when the silk is unrolled from the
+scalded cocoons, to lie about in horrid heaps until they are sold as
+manure or carp food. The professor declared that his product was equal
+to a third of the total weight of the pupæ utilised, and was sure that
+it could be sold at a fifteenth of the price of Western beef essences.
+The Director of the College had tried the product with his breakfast
+for a fortnight and avowed that during the experiment he was never so
+perky.
+
+It was a pleasure to look into the well-kept dormitories of the
+students, where there was evidence, in books, pictures and athletic
+material, of a strenuous life. The young men are made fit not only by
+_judō_, fencing, archery, tennis and general athletics, but by being
+sent up the mountains on Sundays. The men are kept so hard that at the
+open fencing contest twice a year the visitors are usually beaten. The
+director quoted to me Roosevelt's "Sweat and be saved."
+
+From men we went to machines and mulberries. I inspected all sorts of
+hot chambers for killing cocoons. I saw, in rooms draped in black
+velvet like the pictured scenes at a beheading, silk testing for
+lustre and colour. I gazed with respect on many kinds of winding and
+weaving machinery. Then, going out into the experiment fields, I
+strode through more varieties of mulberry than I had imagined to
+exist. There are supposed to be 500 sorts in the country but many are
+no doubt duplicates. The varieties differ so much in shape and texture
+of leaf that the novice would not take some of them for mulberries.
+
+It was held that it would not be difficult to increase the mulberry
+area in Japan by another quarter of a million acres. The yield of
+leaves might be raised by 3,300 lbs. per acre if the right sort of
+bushes were always grown and the right sort of treatment were given to
+them and to the soil. As to the additional labour needed for an
+extended sericulture, the annual increase in the population of Japan
+would provide it. I was told that "the technics of sericulture are
+sure to improve." It would be easy to raise the yield 2 _kwan_ per egg
+card for the whole country. Within a seven-year period the production
+of cocoons per egg card had become 20 per cent. better. The talk was
+of doubling the present yield of cocoons. The "proper encouragement"
+needed for doubling the production of cocoons was more technical
+instruction and more co-operative societies. There had been a
+continual rise in the world's demand for silk and there was no need to
+fear "artificial silk." "People who buy it often come to appreciate
+natural silk." And I read in an official publication that "the climate
+of Japan is suitable for the cultivation of mulberry trees from
+south-west Formosa to Hokkaido in the north."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[139] For statistics of sericulture, see Appendix XXXIX.
+
+[140] She is examined microscopically in order to make sure that she
+was not affected by infectious disease.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+"GIRL COLLECTORS" AND FACTORIES
+
+(NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)
+
+At your return show the truth.--FROISSART
+
+
+I visited factories in more than one prefecture. At the first
+factory--it employed about 1,000 girls and 200 men--work began at 4.30
+a.m., breakfast was at 5 and the next meal at 10.30. The stoppages for
+eating were for a few minutes only. A cake was handed to each girl at
+her machine at 3. Suppertime came after work was finished at 7.[141]
+No money was paid the first year. The second year the wages might be 3
+or 4 yen a month. The statement was made that at the end of her five
+years' term a girl might have 300 yen, but that this sum was not
+within the reach of all.[142] The girls were driven at top speed by a
+flag system in which one bay competed with another and was paid
+according to its earnings. Owing to the heat the flushed girls
+probably looked better in health than they really were. They were fat
+in the face, but this could not be regarded as an indication of their
+general well-being. It was admitted that some girls left through
+illness. Employees returned to their homes for January and February,
+when the factory was closed down; there was also three days' holiday
+in June. In the dormitory I noticed that each girl had the space of
+one mat only (6 ft. by 3 ft.). Twenty-two girls slept in each
+dormitory. The men connected with this factory were low-looking and
+shifty-eyed.
+
+An agricultural expert who was well acquainted with the conditions of
+silk manufacture and of the district and was in a disinterested
+position told me after my visit to this factory how the foremen
+scoured the country for girl labour during January and February. The
+success of the _kemban_ or girl collector was due to the poverty of
+the people, who were glad "to be relieved of the cost of a daughter's
+food." Occasionally the _kemban_ had sub-agents. The mill proprietors
+were in competition for skilled girls, and money was given by a
+_kemban_ intent on stealing another factory's hand.
+
+The novices had no contract. The contract of a skilled girl provided
+that she should serve at the factory for a specified period and that
+if she failed to do so, she should pay back twenty times the 5 yen or
+whatever sum had been advanced to her. Obviously 100 yen would be a
+prohibitive sum for a peasant's daughter to find. The amount of the
+workers' pay was not specified in the contract. The document was
+plainly one-sided and would be regarded in an English court as against
+public policy and unenforceable. Married women might take an infant
+with them to the factory. In more than one factory I saw several
+thin-faced babies.
+
+The effect of factory life on girls, a man who knew the countryside
+well told me, was "not good." The girls had weakened constitutions as
+the result of their factory life and when they married had fewer than
+the normal number of children. The general result of factory life was
+degeneration. The girls "corrupted their villages."
+
+The custom was, I understood, that the girls were kept on the factory
+premises except when they could allege urgent business in town. But
+they were allowed out on the three nights of the _Bon_ festival. It
+was rare that priests visited the factories and there were no shrines
+there. The girls had sometimes "lessons" given them and occasionally
+story-tellers or gramophone owners amused them. The food supplied by
+some factories was not at all adequate and the girls had to spend
+their money at the factory tuck-shops. "Most proprietors," I was told,
+"endeavour to make part of their staff permanent by acting as
+middlemen to arrange marriages between female and male workers." The
+infants of married workers were "looked after by the youngest
+apprentices."
+
+In another place I saw over a factory which employed about 160 girls,
+who were worked from 5:30 a.m. to 6:40 p.m. with twenty minutes for
+each meal. If a girl "broke her contract" it was the custom to send
+her name to other factories so that she could not get work again. The
+foremen at this establishment seemed decent men.
+
+One who had no financial interest in the silk industry but knew the
+district in which this second factory stood said that "many girls"
+came home in trouble. The peasants did not like "the spoiling of their
+daughters," but were "captured in their poverty by the idea of the
+money to be gained." Undoubtedly the factory life was pictured in
+glowing colours by the _kemban_.
+
+In a third factory there were more than 200 girls and only 15 men. The
+proprietor and manager seemed good fellows. I was assured that it was
+forbidden for men workers to enter the women's quarters, but on
+entering the dormitory I came on a man and woman scuffling. The girls
+of this factory and in others had running below their feet an iron
+pipe which was filled with steam in cold weather. On some days in
+July, the month in which I visited this factory, I noticed from the
+temperature record sheet that the heat had reached 94 degrees in the
+steamy spinning bays, where, unless the weather be damp, it was
+impossible, because of spinning conditions, to admit fresh air. I saw
+a complaint box for the workers. As in other factories, there was a
+certain provision of boiled water and ample bathing accommodation. Hot
+baths were taken every night in summer and every other night in
+winter. Here, as elsewhere, though many of the girls were pale and
+anaemic, all were clean in their persons, which is more than can be
+said of all Western factory hands. Work began at 4 a.m. and went on
+until 7 p.m. From 10 to 15 minutes were allowed for meals. The winter
+hours were from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
+
+In this factory, as in others, there was a system of tallies, showing
+to all the workers the ranking of the girls for payment. The standard
+wage seemed to be 20 sen a day, and the average to which it was
+brought by good work 30 sen. There were thirty or more girls who had
+deductions from their 20 sen. Apprentices were shown as working at a
+loss. Once or twice a month a story-teller came to entertain the girls
+and every fortnight a teacher gave them instruction. When I asked if a
+priest came I was told that "in this district the families are not so
+religious, so the girls are not so pious." Two doctors visited the
+factory, one of them daily. Counting all causes, 5 per cent. of the
+girls returned home. The owner of the factory, a man in good physical
+training and with an alert and kindly face, said the industry
+succeeded in his district because the employers "exerted themselves"
+and the girls "worked with the devotion of soldiers." I thought of a
+motto written by the Empress, which I had seen at Ueda, "It is my wish
+that the girls whose service it is to spin silk shall be always
+diligent." Behind the desk of this factory proprietor hung the motto,
+"Cultivate virtues and be righteous."
+
+The fourth factory I saw seemed to be staffed entirely with
+apprentices who were turned over to other factories in their third
+year. The girls appeared to have to sleep three girls to two mats. In
+the event of fire the dormitory would be a death-trap. I was told that
+there was an entertainment or a "lecture on character" once a week.
+The motto on the walls of this factory was, "Learning right ways means
+loving mankind."
+
+I went over the factory which belonged to the largest concern in Japan
+and had 10,000 hands. The girls were looked after in well-ventilated
+dormitories by ten old women who slept during the day and kept watch
+at night. There was a fire escape. All sorts of things were on sale at
+wholesale prices at the factory shop, but for any good reason an exit
+ticket was given to town. The dining-room was excellent. There was a
+hospital in this factory and the nurse in the dispensary summarised at
+my request the ailments of the 35 girls who were lying down
+comfortably: stomachic, 12; colds, 7; fingers hurt by the hot water of
+the cocoon-soaking basins, 5; female affections, 4; nervous, 2; eyes,
+rheumatism, nose, lungs and kidneys, 1 each. The average wages in this
+factory worked out at 60 yen for 9 months. The hour of beginning work
+was 4:30 at the earliest. The factory stopped at sunset, the latest
+hour being 6:30. I was assured that of the girls who did not get
+married 70 per cent. renewed their contracts. A large enclosed open
+space was available in which the girls might stroll before going to
+bed. The motto of the establishment was, "I hear the voice of spring
+under the shadow of the trees." In reference to the new factory
+legislation the manager said that the hours of labour were so long
+that it would be some time before 10 hours a day would be
+initiated.[143] This factory and its branches were started thirty
+years ago by a man who was originally a factory worker. Although now
+very rich he had "always refused to be photographed and had not
+availed himself of an opportunity of entering the House of Peers."
+
+I visited several factories the girls working at which did not live in
+dormitories but outside. At a winding and hanking factory which was
+airy and well lighted the hours were from 6 to 6. At a factory where
+the hours were from 4:30 to 7 some reelers had been fined. Japanese
+Christian pastors sometimes came to see the girls, and on the wall of
+the recreation room there were paper _gohei_ hung up by a Shinto
+priest.
+
+I got the impression that the girls in the factories at Kōfu in
+Yamanashi prefecture were not driven so hard as those at the factories
+in the Suwas in Nagano. Someone said: "However the Suwa people may
+exploit their girls, we are able, working shorter hours and giving
+more entertainments, to produce better silk, for the simple reason
+that the girls are in better condition. We can get from 5 to 10 per
+cent. more for our silk." A factory manager said that it would be
+better if the girls had a regular holiday once a week, but one firm
+could not act alone. (The factories are working seven days a week,
+except for festival days and public holidays.)
+
+With regard to the _kemban_, I was told in Yamanashi that many girls
+went to the factories "unwillingly by the instructions of their
+parents." It was also stated that the money paid to girls or their
+parents on their engagement was not properly a gratuity but an
+advance. I heard that the police keep a special watch on _kemban_.
+They would not do this without good reason.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[141] The times stated are those given to me in the factories. The
+question of overtime is referred to later in the Chapter.
+
+[142] Again the reader must be reminded of the rise in wages and
+prices (estimated on p. xxv). During the recent period of inflation,
+silk rose to 3,000 yen per picul and fell to 1,300 or 1,400 yen. There
+have been great fluctuations in the wages of factory girls. At the
+most flourishing period as much as 25 yen per head was paid to
+recruiters of girls. In this Chapter, however, it is best to record
+exactly what I saw and heard.
+
+[143] On the day on which I re-read this for the printers, I notice in
+an American paper that one of the largest employers of labour in the
+United States has just stated that he did not see his way to abolish
+the twelve-hours' day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+"FRIEND-LOVE-SOCIETY'S" GRIM TALE
+
+The psychology of behaviour teaches us that [a country's] failures and
+semi-failures are likely to continue until there is a far more
+widespread appreciation of the importance of studying the forces which
+govern behaviour.--SAXBY
+
+I
+
+
+I do not think that some of the factory proprietors are conscious that
+they are taking undue advantage of their employees. These men are just
+average persons at the ante-Shaftesbury stage of responsibility
+towards labour.[144] Their case is that the girls are pitifully poor
+and that the factories supply work at the ruling market rates for the
+work of the pitifully poor. Said one factory owner to me genially:
+"Peasant families are accustomed to work from daylight to dark. In the
+silk-worm feeding season they have almost no time for sleep. Peasant
+people are trained to long hours. Lazy people might suffer from the
+long hours of the factory, but the factory girls are not lazy."
+
+It hardly needs to be pointed out that there is all the difference
+between a long day at the varied work of a farm, even in the trying
+silk-worm season, and a long day, for nine or ten months on end,
+sitting still, with the briefest intervals for food, in the din and
+heat of a factory. Such a life must be debilitating. When it is added
+that in most factories, in the short period between supper and sleep,
+and again during the night, the girls are closely crowded, no further
+explanation is wanted of the origin of the tuberculosis which is so
+prevalent in the villages which supply factory labour.[145] There is
+no question that in the scanty moments the girls do have for an airing
+most of them are immured within the compounds of their factories. A
+large proportion of the many thousands of factory girls[146] who are
+to be mothers of a new generation in the villages are passing years of
+their lives in conditions which are bad for them physically and
+morally. It must not be forgotten that very many of the girls go to
+the factories before they are fully grown. On the question of
+morality, evidence from disinterested quarters left no doubt on my
+mind that the _morale_ of the girls was lowered by factory life. The
+Lancashire factory girl goes home every evening and she has her
+Saturday afternoon and her Sunday, her church or chapel, her societies
+and clubs, her amusements and her sweetheart. Her Japanese sister has
+none of this natural life and she has infinitely worse conditions of
+labour.
+
+It is only fair to remember, however, that the Japanese factory girl
+comes from a distance. She has no relatives or friends in the town in
+which she is working. But the plea that she would get into trouble if
+she were allowed her liberty without control of any sort does not
+excuse her present treatment. If the factories offered decent
+conditions of life not a few of the companies would get at their doors
+most of the labour they need and many of the girls would live at home.
+If the factories insist on having cheap rural labour then they should
+do their duty by it. The girls should have reasonable working hours,
+proper sleeping accommodation and proper opportunities inside and
+outside the factories for recreation and moral and mental improvement.
+It is idle to suggest that fair treatment of this sort is impossible.
+It is perfectly possible.
+
+The factory proprietors are no worse than many other people intent on
+money making. But the silk industry, as I saw it, was exploiting,
+consciously or unconsciously, not only the poverty of its girl
+employees but their strength, morality, deftness[147] and remarkable
+school training in earnestness and obedience. Several times I heard
+the unenlightened argument that, if there were a certain sacrifice of
+health and well-being, a rapidly increasing population made the
+sacrifice possible; that, as silk was the most valuable product in
+Japan, and it was imperative for the development and security of the
+Empire that its economic position should be strengthened, the
+sacrifice must be made. Nothing need be said of such a hopelessly
+out-of-date and nationally indefensible attitude except this: that it
+is doubtful whether any considerable proportion of the people
+connected with the silk industry have felt themselves specially
+charged with a mission to strengthen the economic condition of their
+country. They have simply availed themselves of a favourable
+opportunity to make money. That opportunity was presented by the cheap
+labour available in farmers' daughters unprotected by effective trade
+unions, by properly administered factory laws or by public opinion.
+
+
+
+II[148]
+
+
+The enterprise, the efficiency and the profits shown by the
+sericultural industry have been remarkable, and not a few of the
+capitalists connected with it are personally public-spirited. But many
+well-wishers of Japan, native-born and foreign, cannot help wondering
+what is the real as compared with the seeming return of the industry
+to a nation the strength of which is in its reservoir of rustic health
+and willingness. It is significant of the extent to which the
+factories are working with cheap labour that, in a country in which
+there are more men than women,[149] there was in about 20,000
+factories 58 per cent. of female labour. If I stress the fact of
+female employment it is because in Japan nearly every woman
+eventually marries. Enfeebled women must therefore hand on
+enfeeblement to the next generation.[150]
+
+The Japanese, in their present factory system, as in other
+developments, insist on making for themselves all the mistakes that we
+have made and are now ashamed of. In judging the Japanese let us
+remember that all our industrial exploitation of women[151] was not,
+as we like to believe, an affair as far off as the opening nineteenth
+century. I do not forget as a young man filling a newspaper poster
+with the title of an article which recounted from my own observation
+the woes of women chain makers who, with bared breasts and their
+infants sprawling in the small coals, slaved in domestic smithies for
+a pittance. And as I write it is announced that the head of the United
+States Steel Corporation says that "there is no necessity for trade
+unions," which are, in his opinion, "inimical to the best interests of
+the employers and the public." That is precisely the view of most
+Japanese factory proprietaries.
+
+The trade union is not illegal in Japan, but its teeth have been drawn
+(1) by the enactment that "those who, with the object of causing a
+strike, seduce or incite others" shall be sentenced to imprisonment
+from one to six months with a fine of from 3 to 30 yen; (2) by the
+power given to the police (_a_) to detain suspected persons for a
+succession of twenty-four hour periods, and (_b_) summarily to close
+public meetings, and (3) by the franchise being so narrow that few
+trade unionists have votes. During the six years of the War there were
+as many as 141,000 strikers, but a not uncommon method of these
+workers was merely to absent themselves from work, to refrain from
+working while in the factory, or to "ca' canny." Nevertheless 633 of
+them were arrested. When I attended in Tokyo a gathering of members of
+the leading labour organisation in Japan it was discreetly named
+Yu-ai-kai (Friend-Love-Society, i.e. Friendly Society). Now it is
+boldly called the Confederation of Japanese Labour. A Socialist
+League[152] and several labour publications exist. Workers assemble to
+see moving pictures of labour demonstrations, and a labour meeting has
+defied the police in attendance by singing the whole of the "Song of
+Revolution." But crippled as the unions are under the law against
+strikes and by the poverty of the workers, they find it difficult to
+attain the financial strength necessary for effective action. Many
+workers are trade unionists when they are striking but their trade
+unionism lapses when the strike is over, for then the unions seem to
+have small reason for existing. The head of the Federation of Labour
+lately announced that the number of trade unionists was only 100,000,
+or half what it was during the recent big strikes and it is doubtful
+whether, even including the 7,000 members of the Seamen's Union, there
+are in Japan more than 50,000 contributing members of the different
+unions. But this 50,000 may be regarded as staunch.
+
+The poverty-stricken unions certainly afford no real protection to the
+girl workers, who form indeed a very small proportion of their
+members. And the Factory Law does little for them. A Japanese friend
+who knows the labour situation well writes to me:
+
+"According to the Factory Law, which came into force in the autumn of
+1916, 'factory employers are not allowed to let women work more than
+twelve hours in a day.' (Article III, section 1.) But if necessary,
+'the competent Minister is entitled to extend this limitation to
+fourteen hours.' (Section 2.) As to night work the law says that
+'factory employers are not allowed to let women work from 10 p.m. to 4
+a.m.' (Article IV.) If, however, there are necessary reasons, 'the
+employers can be exempted from the obligation of the Article IV.'
+(Article V.) Article IX says that 'the employers are forbidden to let
+women engage in dangerous work.' But whether work is dangerous or not
+is determined by 'the competent Minister' (Article XI), who may or may
+not be well informed. There is also Article XII, 'The competent
+Minister can limit or prohibit the work of women about to have
+children' and within three weeks after confinement. But anyone who
+enters factories may see women with pale faces because they work too
+soon after their confinement.
+
+"I cannot tell you how far these provisions are enforced. I can only
+say that I have not yet heard of employers being punished for
+violating the Factory Law. Can it be supposed that employers are so
+honest as never to violate the Factory Law? As to working hours, in
+some factories they may work less than fourteen hours as the law
+indicates. In others they may work more, because 'there are necessary
+reasons.' This is especially true of the factories in the country
+parts. As 200 inspectors have been appointed, the authorities must by
+now know the actual situation pretty well."
+
+Dr. Kuwata, a former member of the Upper House, with whom I frequently
+discussed the labour situation, declares the Factory Law to be
+"palpably imperfect and primitive." At the end of 1917 there were,
+according to official figures, 99,000 female factory operatives under
+fifteen years of age and 2,400 under twelve. Some 20,000 of these
+children were employed in silk factories. What protection have they?
+Before passing this page for the press I have shown it to a
+well-informed Japanese friend and he says that he has never seen any
+newspaper report of a prosecution under the Factory Law. Obviously a
+Factory Law under which no one is ever prosecuted is not
+operative.[153]
+
+It is excellent that Japan has sent a large permanent delegation to
+Switzerland to establish a system of liaison with the International
+Labour Office of the League of Nations. This company of young men will
+keep the Japanese Government well informed. There is undoubtedly in
+Japan, under Western influence, a steady development of sensitiveness
+to working-class conditions and a rapid growth of modern social
+ideas. But the Government and the Diet will not step out far in
+advance of general opinion, the most will naturally be made by the
+authorities and trade interests of bad factory conditions on the
+Continent of Europe and in some industries in the United States, and
+the majority of a public which has been carefully nurtured in the
+belief that a profitable industrialism is the great desideratum for
+Japan will not be restive. Real factory reform is not to be expected
+until an enlightened view is taken by Japanese in general of the
+exploitation of girls for any purpose. It is not in commercial human
+nature, Eastern or Western, that factory directors and shareholders
+should forgo without a struggle the advantage of possessing cheaper
+and more subjected labour than their foreign rivals. Some influence
+may be exerted in the right direction by the fact that those who are
+profiting by cheap and docile labour may themselves be undersold
+before long by cheaper and still more docile labour in China.[154] And
+in 1922 Japan is under an obligation, accepted at the Washington
+Labour Conference, to stop women working more than eleven hours a day
+and to abolish night work. Meantime the labour movement makes
+progress. It is significant that many of its leaders are under the
+influence of "direct action" ideas. They hope little from a Diet
+elected on a narrow franchise and supported by a strong Government
+machine backed by the Conservative farmer vote. Although, however,
+there does not seem to be as yet a junction between the labour
+movement and the unions of the tenant farmers, who have their own
+interests alone in view, the future may present unexpected
+developments. As I write, the labour movement is conducting a trial of
+strength with the great Mitsubishi and Kawasaki enterprises and is
+presenting a stronger front than it has yet done.
+
+This Chapter would give an unfair impression of the relations of
+capital and labour in Japan if it included no reference to the
+well-intentioned efforts made by several large employers to improve
+the conditions of working-class life and labour. Sometimes they have
+followed the example of philanthropic firms in Great Britain and
+America. As often as not they have been inspired by old Japanese ideas
+of a master's responsibilities. Many leading industrials have believed
+and still believe that by the conservation and development of old
+ideas of paternalism and loyalty the trade-union stage of industrial
+development may be avoided. This conviction was expressed to me by,
+among others, Mr. Matsukata, of the famous Kawasaki concern, who has
+made generous contributions to "welfare" work. My own brief experience
+as an employer in Japan made me acquainted with some canons in the
+relationship of employer and employed which have lost their authority
+in the West. Given wisdom on the part of masters, the prolonged
+bitterness which has marked the industrial development of the West
+need not be repeated in Japan, but whether that wisdom will be
+displayed in time is doubtful. The Japanese commercial world has been
+commendably quick to learn in many directions in the West. It will be
+a serious reflection on the intelligence of the country if the lessons
+of the industrial acerbities of Europe and the United States should
+not be grasped. Meantime it is a duty which the foreign observer owes
+to Japan to speak quite plainly of attempts as silly as they are
+useless[155] to obscure the lamentable condition of a large proportion
+of Japanese workers, to hide the immense profits which have been made
+by their employers and to pretend that factory laws have only to be
+placed on the statute book in order to be enforced. But if he be
+honest he must also recognise the handicap of specially costly
+equipment[156] and of unskilled labour and inexperience under which
+the Japanese business world is competing for the place in foreign
+trade to which it has a just claim. Such conditions do not in the
+least excuse inhumanity, but they help to explain it.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[144] It is a chastening exercise to read before proceeding with this
+Chapter an extract from Spencer Walpole's _History of England_, vol.
+iii, p. 317, under the year 1832: "The manufacturing industries of the
+country were collected into a few centres. In one sense the persons
+employed had their reward: the manufacturers gave them wages. In
+another sense their change of occupation brought them nothing but
+evil. Forced to dwell in a crowded alley, occupying at night a house
+constructed in neglect of every known sanitary law, employed in the
+daytime in an unhealthy atmosphere and frequently on a dangerous
+occupation, with no education available for his children, with no
+reasonable recreation, with the sky shrouded by the smoke of an
+adjoining capital, with the face of nature hidden by a brick wall,
+neglected by an overworked clergyman, regarded as a mere machine by an
+avaricious employer, the factory operative turned to the public house,
+the prize ring or the cockpit."
+
+[145] See Appendix XL.
+
+[146] Number of factory workers, a million and a half, of whom 800,000
+are females. For statistics of women workers, see Appendix XLI.
+
+[147] The Minister of Commerce has himself stated that the
+sericultural industry is rooted in the dexterity of the Japanese
+countrywoman.
+
+[148] This section of the Chapter was written in 1921.
+
+[149] In Japan in 1918 there were, per 1,000, 505.2 men to 494.8
+women.
+
+[150] Of the workers under the age of fifteen in the 20,000 factories,
+82 per cent. were girls. The statistics in this paragraph were issued
+by the Ministry of Commerce in 1917.
+
+[151] For sketches of women and children (with a chain between their
+legs) harnessed to coal wagons in the pits, see _Parliamentary
+Papers_, vol. xv, 1842. "There is a factory system grown up in England
+the most horrible that imagination can conceive," wrote Sir William
+Napier to Lady Hester Stanhope two years after Queen Victoria's
+accession. "They are hells where hundreds of children are killed
+yearly in protracted torture." In Torrens's _Memoirs of the Queen's
+First Prime Minister_, one reads: "Melbourne had a Bill drawn which
+with some difficulty he persuaded the Cabinet to sanction, prohibiting
+the employment of children _under 9 in any except silk mills_."
+
+[152] More than 200 books on Socialism were published in 1920.
+
+[153] For a declaration by Dr. Kuwata concerning bad food and
+"defiance of hygienic rules," see Appendix XLII.
+
+[154] See Appendix XLIII.
+
+[155] See Appendix XLII.
+
+[156] In a pre-War publication of the United States Department of
+Commerce it was stated that the cost of cotton mills per spindle is in
+England _32s._, in the United States _44s._, in Germany _52s._, and in
+Japan _100s._
+
+[Illustration: ARCHERY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL.]
+
+[Illustration: CULTIVATION OF THE HILLSIDE.]
+
+[Illustration: RAILWAY STATION "BENTO" BOX (OPEN) AND POT OF TEA WITH
+CUP. p. 110  The _bento_ box provides rice, meat, fish, omelette and
+assorted pickles; also paper napkin and _hashi_ (chop-sticks) and
+(between them) a toothpick.]
+
+
+
+
+FROM TOKYO TO THE NORTH BY THE
+WEST COAST
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"THE GARDEN WHERE VIRTUES ARE CULTIVATED"
+
+(FUKUSHIMA AND YAMAGATA)
+
+BOSWELL: If you should advise me to go to Japan I believe I should.
+JOHNSON: Why yes, Sir, I am serious.
+
+
+In one of my journeys I went from Tokyo to the extreme north of Japan,
+travelling up the west coast and down the east. Fukushima
+prefecture--in which is Shirakawa, famous for a horse fair which lasts
+a week--encourages the eating of barley, for on the northern half of
+the east coast of Japan there is no warm current and the rice crop may
+be lost in a cold season. "Officials of the prefecture and county,"
+someone said to me, "take barley themselves; enthusiastic _gunchō_
+take it gladly."
+
+The prefectural station, by selecting the best varieties of rice for
+sowing, had effected a 10 per cent. improvement in yield. In each
+county an official "agricultural encourager" had been appointed. The
+lectures given at the experiment station were attended by 18,000
+persons. The studious who listen to the lectures had formed an
+association that provided at the station a fine building where supper,
+bed, breakfast and lunch cost 30 sen. It contained a model of the Ise
+shrine with a motto in the handwriting of a well-known Tokyo
+agricultural professor, "Difficulties Polish You."
+
+"Some villagers," said a local authority, "want to make the Buddhist
+temple the centre of the development of village life. In several
+places agricultural products are exhibited at Shinto shrines. Farmers
+offer them out of a kind of piety, but the products are afterwards
+criticised from a technical point of view. This is done on the
+initiative of the villagers encouraged by the prefecture."
+
+Hereabouts the winter work of the people, in addition to basket, rope
+and mat making, was paper making and smoothing out the wrinkles of
+tobacco.[157] A considerable number of people had emigrated to South
+America. The principal need of the villages, it was stated, was money
+at less than the current rate of 20 per cent. In one place I found a
+factory built on the side of a daimyo's castle.
+
+I was told of crops of _konnyaku_ which had made one man the second
+richest person in the prefecture and had therefore qualified him for
+membership in the House of Peers. (The House includes one member from
+each prefecture as the representative of the highest taxpayers of that
+prefecture.)
+
+During my journeys I picked up many odds and ends of information by
+walking through the trains and having chats with country people. I was
+also helped by county and prefectural agricultural officials who,
+having learnt of my movements, were kind enough to join me in the
+train for an hour or so. One head of an agricultural school which was
+full up with students told me that there were already in Fukushima two
+prefectural and five county agricultural schools.
+
+Our train, half freight with a locomotive at each end, went over the
+backbone of Japan through the usual series of snow shelters and
+tunnels. Having surmounted the heights we slid down into Yamagata. I
+should properly write Yamagataken, which we cannot translate
+Yamagatashire, for a _ken_ (prefecture) is made up of counties. There
+are eleven counties in Yamagataken.
+
+Almost any sort of dwelling looks tolerable in August, but many of the
+houses that first caught our attention must be lamentable shelters in
+winter. Some farmers, I learnt, were "in a very bad condition." We
+dropped from a silk and rice plateau and then to a region where the
+main crop was rice. The bare hills to be seen in our descent were an
+appalling spectacle when it was realised how close was their relation
+to the disastrous floods of the prefecture. A man in the train had
+lost 10,000 yen by floods, a large sum in rural Japan. In two years
+the prefecture had spent in river-bank repairs nearly a million yen. A
+flood some years ago did damage to the amount of 20 million yen. The
+prefecture had a debt of 60 million yen, chiefly due to havoc wrought
+by its big river. A yearly sum was spent on afforestation in addition
+to what was laid out by the State and by private individuals. A
+forestry association was trying to raise half a million yen for tree
+planting. But the flooding of the plains was not the only water
+trouble of the Yamagatans. In one district they had a stream which
+contained solutions of compounds of sulphuric acid so strong that
+crops fail for three years on ground watered from it. In other parts
+of the prefecture, however, farmers had the advantage, enjoyed in many
+parts of Japan, of being able to water from ammonia water springs.
+
+Hereabouts I first noticed the device common to many districts of
+having on the roof of a cottage a water barrel, tub or cistern, ready
+to be emptied on the shingle roof when sparks fly from a burning
+dwelling. Sometimes the wooden water receptacles are wrapped round
+with straw.
+
+In the prefectural city of Yamagata I heard of a primary school which
+had a farm and made a profit, also of four landowners who had engaged
+an agricultural expert for the instruction of their tenants. "A very
+certain crop" round about the city was grapes. Some 25,000 persons
+yearly visited the prefectural 12 _-chō_ experiment station, which
+within a year had distributed to farmers 7,600 cyanided fruit trees
+and 80 bushels of special seed rice.
+
+Near the experiment station was a crematorium of ugly brick and
+galvanised iron belonging to the city of Yamagata at which 1,000
+bodies were burnt in a year in furnaces heated with pine blocks. A
+selection might be made from four rates ranging from 35 sen to 5 yen.
+The most expensive rate was for folk who arrived in Western-style
+coffins.
+
+The experiment station had another institution at its doors. This had
+to do not with the dead but with the living. Its name was "The Garden
+where Virtues are Cultivated." The director of it was the father of
+the agricultural expert of the prefecture. The garden, which was not a
+garden, was a home for bad boys, or rather for thirty bad boys and one
+bad girl. The bad girl--the director, being a man of humanity, common
+sense and courage, thought it most necessary that there should be at
+least one bad girl--acted as maidservant to the director. The bad boys
+"maided" themselves and the school. The lads were such as had fallen
+into the hands of the police. They were being reformed in a somewhat
+original way by a somewhat original director.
+
+Early in the day they had their cold bath, which was itself a break
+with Japanese custom, for, though most Japanese have a nightly hot
+bath, they are content with a basin wash in the morning. Then the boys
+"cleaned school." Next they were marched up one by one to a mirror and
+required to take a good look at themselves, in order, no doubt, to see
+just how bad they were. After this they were called on to "give thanks
+to the Emperor and their ancestors." Finally came a half-hour lecture
+on "morality." It was considered that by this time the boys were
+entitled to their breakfast. For open-air labour they were sent to the
+experiment station, but they had manual work also in their own school,
+where, among other things, they "made useful things out of waste," the
+income from which went to their families. On Sundays the master,
+though he must be nearer sixty than fifty, fenced with every one of
+the thirty boys in turn--no ordinary task, for Japanese fencing calls
+not only for an eye and a hand, but for a muscular back. Some
+wholesome-looking young fellows, members of a young men's association,
+served as volunteer masters and lived in the bare fashion that was so
+good for the boys.
+
+The director did not believe that bad boys were hopeless. He said that
+not only the boys but their parents were better for the work done in
+"The Garden where Virtues are Cultivated." He seemed to have become a
+sort of consulting expert to primary school-masters who were at a loss
+to know how to manage bad boys. Chastisement, as is well known, is
+unusual in Japanese schools. The director of the human _hortus
+inclusus_ confessed to me that though two of his boys whom he had
+caught fighting might not have been separated without, in the Western
+phrase, "feeling the weight of his hand," his heaviest punishment on
+other difficult occasions was the moxa.
+
+The moxa brings us back to real horticulture. Moxa is _mogusa_ or
+mugwort. _Mogusa_ means "burning herb." The moxa is a great
+therapeutic agent in the Far East. A bit of the dried herb is laid on
+the skin and set fire to as a sort of blister. From the application of
+the moxa as a cure for physical ills to its application for the cure
+of bad boys is a natural step. One sees by the scars on the backs of
+not a few Japanese that in their youth either their health or their
+characters left something to be desired. The moxa, then, is the rod in
+pickle in "The Garden where Virtues are Cultivated." But I think it is
+not brought out often. A wrestling ring in a mass of sand thrown down
+in a yard, a harmonium, a blackboard for the boys to work their will
+on, doors labelled "The Room of Patience," "The Room of Honesty," "The
+Room of Cleanliness" and "The Room of Good Arrangement," not to speak
+of a rabbit loping about the school premises--these and some other
+touches in the management of the school spoke of an even stronger
+influence toward well-doing than the moxa. But even if the moxa should
+fail, the attention of the boys could always be drawn to the
+crematorium.
+
+One who knew the rural districts discoursed to me in this wise: "The
+best men are not numerous, but neither are the worst. I doubt whether
+the desire to enjoy life is as strong in the Japanese as in the people
+of the West. Most farmers would no doubt be happy with material
+comfort. Pressed as they have been by material needs, they have no
+time to think. When they are easier, they may get something beyond the
+physical. At present we must regard their material welfare as the most
+urgent thing." But a man standing by, who was also a countryman,
+strongly dissented. "Religion," he said, "is not only important but
+fundamental."
+
+I have been received by more than one prefectural governor at eight in
+the morning. His Excellency of Yamagata sets a good example by rising
+at five and by going to bed at nine. He told me that he thought the
+farmer's chief lack was cheap money. Low interest and a long term
+might convert into arable 25,000 acres of barren land in his
+prefecture. In the old days, as I knew, the farmers drove tunnels
+considerable distances for irrigation, but with modern engineering
+better results would be possible if money were available. As to the
+misdeeds of the rivers, it might almost be said that every village was
+feeling the need of embanking and of going to the source of loss by
+planting trees in the hills. Beautiful forests of feudal period had
+been wasted in the early days of Meiji and the result was now plain.
+
+But attention had to be given to the minds as well as the pockets of
+the villagers. Families that were once reasonably content were now
+discontented. A livelihood was harder to get, taxation was heavier and
+there was an increase in needs. Country people imagined townspeople to
+be comfortably off, "not realising how they were tormented." Villagers
+envied townsmen their amusements. Some prefectures had forbidden the
+_Bon_ dance and had supplied nothing in its place. It was easy to see
+why farmers no longer applied themselves so closely to their calling
+and were wavering in their allegiance to country life. Healthful
+amusements were necessary for those whose minds were not much
+developed. Also, country people should be taught the true character of
+town life, and that agriculture, though it might not yield the profit
+of commerce and industry, ensured a reasonably happy life in healthful
+places where physical strength could be enjoyed. The right kind of
+village libraries should be encouraged. Music might perhaps be forced
+into competition with _saké_.
+
+A mental awakening by education was the final solution of the rural
+problem, the Governor thought. Religion was also important for the
+development of the village. Believers not under the eyes of others
+would avoid wrong-doing because watched by heaven. Lectures on
+agriculture and sanitation had a good influence when delivered by
+priests. Temples were often schools before the era of Meiji and so
+priests were socially active. Under the new dispensation the work was
+taken out of their hands. So they had come to care little for the
+affairs of the world. But they were influential and the prefecture had
+asked for their help. The merits of many priests might not be
+conspicuous, but the number of them who were active was increasing and
+the villagers deferred to them if they took any step.
+
+The most hopeful thing in the villages was the awakening of the young
+men: they were becoming "sincere," a favourite Japanese word. For the
+most part the credit societies were not efficient, but in one county
+credit societies had lessened the business of the banks. The best way
+to furnish capital to farmers was out of the capital of their fellow
+farmers.
+
+Possibly the girls of the villages were not making the same advance as
+the boys. They did not go to their field labour willingly. Sometimes
+when a woman was asked by a neighbour on the road, "Have you been
+working on the farm?" she would answer, "No, I have been to the
+temple." The host of women's papers had a bad effect. With regard to
+the _habutae_ (silk goods) factories, there was a bright side, for
+they gave work to the girls in winter, when they were idle "and
+therefore poor and sometimes immoral." On the other hand, factory
+girls tended to become vain and thriftless and the stay-at-home girls
+were inclined to imitate them.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[157] See Appendix XLV.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE "TANOMOSHI"
+
+(YAMAGATA)
+
+Society is kept in animation by the customary and by sentiment.--MEREDITH
+
+
+Six feet of snow is common on the line on which we travelled in
+Yamagata prefecture, and washouts are not infrequent. A train has been
+stopped for a week by snow. It was difficult to think of snow when one
+saw groups of pilgrims with their flopping sun-mats on their backs.
+The shrines on three local mountain tops are visited by 20,000 people
+yearly.
+
+We bought at railway stations different sorts of gelatinous fruit
+preparations. Most places in Japan have a speciality in the form of a
+food or a curiosity that can be bought by travellers.
+
+In the great Shonai plain, which extends through three counties, there
+are no fewer than 82,500 acres of rice and the unending crops were a
+sight to see. A great deal of the paddy land has been adjusted. In one
+county there is the largest adjusted area in Japan, 20,000 acres. When
+one raises one's eyes from the waving fields of illimitable rice, the
+dominating feature of the landscape is Mount Chokai with his August
+snow cap.
+
+The three-storey hotel at which we stayed had been taken to pieces and
+transported twenty miles. Such removal of houses to a more convenient
+or, in the case of an hotel, a more profitable site, is not uncommon.
+I sometimes patronised at Omori a large hotel on a little hill halfway
+between Yokohama and Tokyo, which had formerly been the prefectural
+building at Kanagawa. In the hotel in which I was now staying I was
+interested in the "Notice" in my room:
+
+1. A spitting-pot is provided. [Usually of bamboo or porcelain.]
+
+2. No towels are lent for fear of _trachoma_.[158] [The traveller in
+Japan carries his own towels, but a towel is a common gift on a
+guest's departure in acknowledgment of his tea money.]
+
+3. There is a table of rates. Guests are requested to say in which
+they desire to be reckoned. [To the hotel proprietor, landlord or
+manager when the visit of courtesy is paid on the guest's arrival.
+Otherwise a judgment is formed from the guest's clothes, demeanour and
+baggage.]
+
+4. Please lock up your valuables or let us keep them. [There are no
+locks on Japanese doors.]
+
+5. Railroad, _kuruma_, box-sledge or automobile charges on
+application. [The box-sledge shows what the country is like in
+winter.]
+
+In conversations about local conditions I was told that "landowners of
+the middle grade" were suffering from "trying to keep up their
+position." I remembered the song which may be rendered:
+
+        Would that my daughter
+        Were married to a middle farmer.
+        With two _chō_ of farm
+        And a _tan_ in the wood.
+        No borrowing; no lending;
+        Both ends meeting.
+        Visiting the temple by turns--
+        Someone must stay at home.
+        Going to Heaven sooner or later.
+        What a happy life!
+        What a happy life!
+
+Tenants were rather well off because their standard of living was
+lower than that of owners. Economic conditions were improving in
+Yamagata, but in the adjoining prefecture of Miyagi on the eastern
+coast of Japan "whole villages" had gone to Hokkaido. Some poor
+farmers were spending only 5 sen a day on food, the rest of what they
+ate coming entirely from their own holdings. Some farmers said, "If
+you calculate our income, we are certainly unable to make a living,
+but in some way or other we are able," which is what some small
+holders in many countries would say.
+
+I was told that a labourer's 5 _tan_ could be cultivated by working
+half days. Generally more was earned by labouring than could be gained
+from a small patch of land. But for half the year labourer's work was
+not obtainable. My informant found small tenant labourers "well off"
+if both husband and wife had wages: "they are able to buy a bottle of
+_saké_ in the evening." Their position was better than that of a small
+peasant proprietor.
+
+One in a thousand of the families in a specified county slept in
+straw. I heard of the payment of 20 to 25 per cent. to pawnbroker
+lenders.
+
+But there is another way of borrowing. The plan of the _kō_ may be
+adopted. A _kō_--it is odd that it should so closely resemble our
+abbreviation "Co."--is simple and effective. If a man is badly off or
+wants to undertake something beyond his financial resources, and his
+friends decide to help him, they may proceed by forming a _kō_. A _kō_
+is composed of a number of people who agree to subscribe a certain sum
+monthly and to divide the proceeds monthly by ballot, beginning by
+giving the first month's receipts to the person to succour whom the
+_kō_ was formed. Suppose that the subscription be fixed at a yen a
+month and that there are fifty subscribers. Then the beneficiary--who
+pays in his yen with the rest--gets 50 yen on the occasion of the
+first ingathering. Every month afterwards a member who is lucky in the
+ballot gets 50 yen. The monthly paying in and paying out continue for
+fifty months and all the subscribers duly get their money back, with
+the advantage of having had a little excitement and having done a
+neighbourly action.
+
+But the _kō_, or _tanomoshi_, as I ought to call it, is not always the
+innocent organisation I have described. There is a _tanomoshi_ system
+under which, after member A, the beneficiary, has received the first
+month's subscriptions, the other members are open to receive bids for
+their shares. That is to say that, when the time comes round for the
+second paying out of 50 yen, member F, who happens to have become as
+much in need of ready money as A was, offers, if the month's moneys be
+handed over to him, to distribute among the members sums up to 20 yen.
+July and December, when most people need ready money, are months in
+which a hard-up member of a _tanomoshi_ may sometimes offer to
+distribute as much as 50 per cent. of what he receives. The result of
+such bidding for shares is that well-to-do members of a _tanomoshi_,
+who are the last to draw their 50 yen, receive in addition to it all
+the extra payments made by impoverished members who took their shares
+earlier. Benevolence in a _tanomoshi_ is not seldom a mask for avarice
+that the law against usury cannot touch. In truth, the only virtuous
+part of a _tanomoshi_ may be the first sharing out to the person in
+whose interest it was supposed to be started. It should be added,
+however, that there is a sort of _tanomoshi_ which has no particular
+beneficiary and is merely a kind of co-operative credit society. In
+one place I heard of a _tanomoshi_ that maintained a large fund for
+the relief of orphans and the sick.
+
+In many villages there were private or co-operative godowns for the
+storage of rice against fire, rats and damp. Though the farmer who
+sends rice to such a store receives a receipt, it is not legally a
+marketable document. Hence an improvement on this simple storage plan.
+I visited the premises of a company that could store more than 500,000
+bushels of rice, and I found purification by carbon bisulphide going
+on. The receipts given by this company--"certificated" for large
+quantities and "tickets" for small--certify not only the quantity but
+the quality of the rice, and are readily cashed. The storehouse owners
+work under a licence, and they have the advantage that the buyer of
+the receipts of non-licensed stores is not protected by the courts.
+
+In the office of the company were samples of eleven market qualities
+of rice, and before them, by way of showing respect to the great food
+staple, was set the _gohei_ of cut white paper seen in Shinto
+shrines. Outside the office, girl porters carried the bales of rice to
+and fro. Close to the store was a river in which some of the dusty,
+perspiring porters were washing and cooling themselves with a
+simplicity to which Western civilisation is not yet equal. Opposite
+them men were fishing by casting in draw nets from the shore just as
+in biblical pictures the apostles are represented as doing.
+
+The company has a rice market where farmers were putting their
+business in the dealers' hands. Each dealer has to deposit 5,000 yen
+with the State. The dealer who buys rice from a farmer has better
+polishing machinery than the farmer possesses. Therefore he can give
+the rice a more uniform appearance. By decreasing the weight of the
+rice during the polishing he gives it he is also able to lessen the
+sum payable for carriage and he has the value of the offal.
+
+In order to visit farmers I rode some distance into the country.[159]
+The village, which was of the Zen sect, was at work cleaning out and
+straightening the stream which, as is usual in many villages, ran
+through the middle of it. I was impressed during my visit not only by
+the readiness and intelligence with which my questions were answered
+but by the good humour with which a stranger's inquiries concerning
+personal matters was received. I had another thought, that I might not
+have found a group of Western farmers so well informed about their
+financial position as these simple, primitively clad men.
+
+Our _kuruma_ route to and from the village had been through one great
+tract of well-adjusted rice fields. Adjustment was not difficult in
+this region because half the land belongs to the Homma family, which
+has given much study to the art of land-holding. For two centuries the
+clan by charging moderate rents and studying the interests of its
+tenants has maintained happy relations with them.
+
+For many years a plan has been in operation by which 200 one-_tan_
+paddy-fields are cultivated by the agents or managers of the estate,
+by tenants selected by their fellow tenants for merit, by tenants
+chosen by the landlord for diligence and by others picked out because
+of their interest in agriculture. In order to increase the zest of
+competition the cultivators are divided into a black and a white
+company. The names of those who raise the most and best rice are
+published in the order of their success, farm implements are
+distributed as prizes, the clever cultivators are invited to the
+landlord's New Year entertainment to the agents and managers, and at
+that feast "places of distinction are given."
+
+There is also a system of rewarding the best five-years averages. A
+competition takes place between what are called "dress fields" because
+those who get the best results from them receive a ceremonial dress
+bearing the inscription, "Prosperity and Welfare." The honour of
+wearing these robes in the presence of their landlord at his annual
+feast is valued by these simple countrymen.
+
+Through the introduction by the landlord of horse labour and
+ploughs--implements with which the farmers were formerly
+unacquainted--second cropping of part of the paddies has become
+possible. There is an elaborate system of "progressive reduction" and
+"average reduction" of rents in a bad season, by which, it was
+explained, "the industrious tenant enjoys a larger reduction than an
+idle one." "Tenants are grouped in fives, which help one another in
+their work and in cases of misfortune." In their agreement with their
+landlord, tenants promise that "wrong-doing shall be mutually
+reprimanded and counsel shall be given one to another." "Again, if a
+tenant falls ill, has his house burnt or meets with misfortune,
+assistance shall be given by his fellows." During the war with Russia
+the following instructions were issued:
+
+Those enlisted in the army shall render their service at the cost of
+their lives.
+
+Those who stay at home shall do their best, complying with the
+principles laid down by the Minister of Agriculture.
+
+Relatives of soldiers at the front shall be helped and sympathised
+with.
+
+All shall subscribe to war bonds as much as possible.
+
+All shall practise thrift and economy in accordance with their social
+standing.
+
+Musical entertainments shall be given up for two years.
+
+Methods proved to be effective in cultivation shall be reported.
+
+In the warm, cloudy days insects multiply rapidly. Think of your
+brothers at the front, struggling against one of the mighty military
+powers of the world, and be ashamed to be vanquished by hordes of
+insects or masses of vegetable growth in your fields. For the purpose
+of destroying insects an ample supply of oil is to be had at the
+experimental farm, as during last year; and payment therefor may be
+deferred until after harvest.
+
+A communication to agents and managers says: "Comport yourselves in a
+way suitable to the dignity of an agent of the clan. Bear in mind the
+privileges and favours you enjoy, and exert yourselves to requite
+these favours. Respect the name and the coat-of-arms of the clan." In
+the neighbourhood there are about a hundred families bearing the name
+of Homma.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[158] In the three years 1916-18 the percentage of conscripts
+suffering from trachoma was 15.8.
+
+[159] For farmers' budgets, see Appendix XIII (end).
+
+
+
+
+BACK AGAIN BY THE EAST COAST
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+"BON" SONGS AND THE SILENT PRIEST
+
+(YAMAGATA, AKITA,[160] AOMORI, IWATE, MIYAGI, FUKUSHIMA
+AND IBARAKI)
+
+The worst of our education is that it looks askance, looks over its
+shoulder at sex.--R.L.S.
+
+
+A village headman, encountered in the train just as we were leaving
+Yamagata prefecture, gave me some insight into the life of his little
+community. The fathers of two-score families were shopkeepers and
+tradesmen--- that is, tradesmen in the old meaning of the word. There
+were also a few labourers. About two hundred and fifty families owned
+land and some of them rented additional tracts. Another sixty were
+simply tenants. The poorer farmers were also labourers or artisans.
+Most of them were "comfortable enough." There were, however, half a
+dozen people in the village who were helped from village funds. Of the
+middle-grade farmers "it might be said that they do not become richer
+or poorer."
+
+The headman had formed a society which sent its members to visit
+prefectures more developed agriculturally. This society had engaged an
+instructor from without the prefecture and he had taught horse tillage
+and the management of upland fields and had made model paddies. Five
+stallions had been obtained and a simple adjustment of paddy-land had
+been brought about. As a result the rice yield had risen.
+
+This headman had also had addresses delivered in the village for the
+first time. Further, after buying a number of books, he had visited
+all the villagers in turn and shown them the books and had said to
+each of them, "I wish you to buy a book and, after reading it, to give
+it to the library." "And," he told me, "none of them objected." Soon a
+valuable library came into existence.
+
+This admirable functionary felt some satisfaction at having been able
+to abate the custom according to which the young men, with the tacit
+permission of their parents, had gone into the neighbouring town after
+harvest "to visit the immoral women." "They used to spend as much as 5
+yen," said our headman. He had started worthier forms of after-harvest
+relaxation, and "the cost of the amusement days is now only 50 or 60
+sen."
+
+When we got on the main line again and pursued our way farther north,
+it was through even stouter snow shelters and through many tunnels.
+Not a few miserable dwellings were to be seen as we passed into Akita
+prefecture. We broke our journey after some hours' travelling to stay
+the night at a rather primitive hot spring inn four or five miles up
+in the hills. A slight rain was falling. Four passengers at a time
+made the ascent to the hotel, squatting on a mat in an old
+contractor's wagon, pushed along roughly laid rails by two perspiring
+youths in rain-cloaks of bark strips. At the inn, on going to the
+bath, I found therein a miscellaneous collection of people of both
+sexes from grandparents to grandchildren. One bather enlivened us by
+performances on the flute, which, if a musical instrument must be
+played in a bath, seems as suitable as any. In this rambling inn there
+were many farmers who, by preparing their own food and doing for
+themselves generally, were holiday-making at bedrock prices.
+
+As it was the _Bon_ season, when the spirits of the dead are supposed
+to return, I was a witness of the method adopted to help the ghosts to
+find their old homes. At the top of a 30 or 40 ft. pole a lantern is
+fixed with a pulley. Fastened up beside the lantern is a bunch of
+green stuff, cryptomeria in many cases. The lantern is lighted each
+evening for a week. Having heard a good deal about the suppression of
+_Bon_ dances and songs I was interested when a fellow-guest began
+talking about them. He had seen many _Bon_ dances and had heard many
+_Bon_ songs. There can be no doubt that there has been some
+unenlightened interference with the _Bon_ gathering. The country
+people seem to be suffering from the determination of officialdom to
+make an end of everything in country as well as town that may be
+considered "uncivilised" by any foreigner, however ill instructed. In
+towns the sexes are not accustomed to meet, but country people must
+work together; therefore they find it natural to dance and sing
+together. As to the _Bon_ songs, it is common sense that expressions
+which may be regarded as outrageous and indecent in a drawing-room may
+not be so terrible on a hilltop among rustics used to very plain
+speech and to easy recognition of natural facts that are veiled from
+townspeople. My chance acquaintance at the inn recited a number of
+_Bon_ songs and next morning brought me some more that he had
+remembered and had been kind enough to write down. They merely
+established the fact that bucolic wit is as elemental in Japan as in
+other lands. Most of the songs had a Rabelaisian touch, some were
+nasty, but nearly all had wit. The following is an entirely harmless
+example:
+
+        Mr. Potato of the Countryside
+        Got his new European suit.
+        But a potato is still a potato.
+        He took one and a half _rin_[161] out of his bag
+        And bought _amé_[162] and licked at it.
+
+Here are three others:
+
+        Tip-toe, tip-toe,
+        Creaks the floor.
+        Girl made prayer,
+        Dreading ghost.
+        But 'twas her lover
+        Who stealthily came.
+
+        Dancer, dancer,
+        Do not laugh at me.
+        My dance is very bad,
+        But I only began last year.
+
+        How thin a thin-legged man may be
+        If he does not take his _miso_ soup.[163]
+
+The quality of these dramatic songs will be entirely missed if the
+reader does not bear in mind the mimetic skill of the amateur Japanese
+dancer and his power as a contortionist. Clever dancers often use
+their powers in a humorous pretence of clumsiness. Of the freer sort
+of songs I may quote two:
+
+        Never buy vegetables in Third Street,[164]
+        You'll lose 30 sen and your nose.
+
+        Onions from a basket hanging in the _benjo_[165]
+        Were cooked in _miso_[166] and given to a blind man,
+        But that chap was greatly delighted.
+
+Some of the other songs may be described, I suppose, as obscene, if
+obscene be, as the dictionary says, "something which delicacy, purity
+and decency forbid to be exposed"; but "delicacy, purity and decency"
+must be considered in relation to climate, work and social usage. What
+one feels about some critics of _Bon_ songs and dances is that they
+need a course of _The Golden Bough_. Such an illustration as _Bon_
+songs furnish of the moral and mental conditions from which country
+folk must raise themselves is of value if rural sociology is a real
+thing. There is far too much theorising about the countryman and the
+countrywoman, far too much idealising of them and far too much rating
+of them as clods. If country people of all lands are free-spoken let
+us be neither hypercritical nor hypocritical. A big gap seems to yawn
+between the paddy-field peasant in his breech clout and the immaculate
+clubman, but what difference is there between the savour of the
+average _Bon_ song and of many a smoking-room jest which is not to the
+credit of the peasant? At an inn in Naganoken a Japanese artist on
+holiday showed me his sketch book. Among his drawings was a
+representation of a shrine festival which he had witnessed in a remote
+village. A festival car was being pushed by a knot of youths and by
+about an equal number of young women and all of them were nude. But no
+enlightened person believes that either decency or morals depends on
+clothing, or would expect to find more essential indecency and
+immorality in that village than in a modern city. What one would
+expect to find would be marriages between physically well-developed
+men and women.
+
+How the race moves on is shown in the famous tale of a saintly Zen
+priest which I first heard in that little hill inn but was afterwards
+to see in dramatic form on the stage of a Tokyo theatre. An unmarried
+girl in the village in which the priest's temple was situated was
+about to have a child. She would not confess to her angry father the
+name of her lover. At last she attributed her condition to the greatly
+honoured priest. Her father was astonished but he was also glad that
+his daughter was in the favour of so eminent a man. So he went to the
+priest and said that he brought him good tidings: the girl whom he had
+deigned to notice was about to have a child. The father went on to
+express at length his sense of obligation to the priest for the honour
+done to his family. All the priest said in reply was, _So desuka_? (Is
+that so?) Soon after the birth of the child the girl besought her
+father to marry her to a certain young farmer. The father, proud of
+the association with the priest, refused. Finally the girl told her
+parent that it was not the priest but the young farmer who was the
+father of her child. The parent was aghast and chagrined as he
+recalled the terms in which he had addressed the saintly man. He
+betook himself at once to the temple and expressed in many words his
+feelings of shame and deep contrition. The priest heard him out, but
+all he said was, _So desuka_?
+
+Yamagata signifies "shape of a mountain" and Akita means "autumn rice
+field." Although Akita prefecture is mountainous there is a greater
+proportion of level land in it than in Yamagata. I find "Rice, rice,
+rice" written in my notebook. An agricultural expert gave me to
+understand that fifteen per cent. of the farmers were probably living
+on rents or on the dividends of silk factories, that 55 or 60 per
+cent. were of the middle grade with an annual income of 300 yen, that
+25 or 30 per cent. had about 150 yen--the lowest sum on which a family
+could be supported--and that there were 3 or 4 per cent. of farm
+labourers who earned less than 150 yen. There had been much paddy
+adjustment and the prefecture was spending 300,000 yen a year for the
+encouragement of adjustment and the opening of new paddies. In the
+case of newly opened fields, tenants had contracts, but ordinary
+tenancies were by word of mouth generation after generation. A great
+deal of agricultural instruction was given by the prefecture, the
+counties and the villages, and in 30 years the rice crop had been
+doubled although the area had remained about the same. In order to
+secure help in the work of rural amelioration a gathering of Buddhist
+priests and another of Shinto priests had been lectured to at the
+prefectural office. Nearly 300,000 yen had been spent in twelve months
+on afforestation. The following year a special effort was to be made
+to spend 500,000 yen. A society raised young trees and sold them at
+cheap rates to farmers. Every young men's association in the
+prefecture had land and had planted trees. It was in Akita that I
+first saw peat in Japan. There are said to be 7,000 acres of it in the
+country.
+
+The prefecture of Aomori forms the northern tip of the mainland. Apart
+from its enormous forest area and the railroad stacks of sawn lumber,
+what caught my eye were the apple orchards and the number of farmers
+on horseback or seated in wagons. Who that has been in Japan has not a
+memory of narrow winding roads along which men and women and young
+people are pulling and pushing carts? Here many farming folk rode. I
+was told that Akita produced apples and potatoes to the value of a
+million yen each and that there were ten co-operative apple societies.
+Much of the fruit went to Russia.
+
+Having passed through the city of Aomori we started to come down the
+east coast. An agricultural authority said that the net profit of a
+dry farm, that is a farm without any paddy, was almost negligible.
+Because of low prices, cattle keeping had decreased to half what it
+used to be. (The only cattle I saw from the train were on the road
+with harness on their backs.) Only 18 yen could be got for a
+two-year-old; the Aomori cattle were indeed the cheapest in Japan. The
+expert added, "There are no buyers; only robbers."
+
+But the dealers were not the only robbers. Boats came from Hokkaido
+and stole cattle from the prefecture to the number of a hundred a
+year. Sometimes horses were taken too, but horse thefts were rare
+"because you cannot kill a horse and sell it for meat." The average
+price of a two-year-old not thus illicitly vended was 70 yen. (It was
+a little less in the next prefecture of Iwate and in Hokkaido.) Half
+of the stallions belonging to the "Bureau of Horse Politics" of the
+Ministry of Agriculture were bought in Aomori.
+
+The farmers by the lake that we passed on our way south were described
+as "very poor," for their soil was barren and their climate bad. Their
+crops were only a third of what could be raised in another part of the
+prefecture. The agriculture of all the prefectures through which I now
+journeyed south to Tokyo suffer from the cold temperature of the sea.
+The east-coast temperature drops in winter to 7 degrees below
+freezing.[167] "Living is more and more difficult," said someone to
+me. "The number of tenants increases because farmers get into debt and
+have to sell their land. Millet and buckwheat are much eaten. Although
+the temperature is 5 per cent. colder in Hokkaido, the people do worse
+here because our soil is barren and there is no profitable winter
+occupation like lumbering. Only 10 per cent. of the rural population
+save anything. In bad times 65 per cent. of the families get into
+debt."
+
+At Morioka in Iwate prefecture I visited the excellent higher
+agricultural college, where there were 300 students. The competition
+for places, as at every educational institution in Japan, was keen.
+The number who sat at the last entrance examinations--the average age
+was twenty--was 317, of whom only 80 got in. There were 15 professors
+and 10 assistants. The charge to students was 300 yen for a year of
+ten months. The annual cost of the college to the Government was
+70,000 yen. Of the foreign volumes among the 20,000 books in the
+library 50 per cent. were German, 30 per cent. English and 20 per
+cent. American.
+
+An apiary of a single skep in a roped-off enclosure was an
+illustration of unfamiliarity with bees. It seemed strange to find
+that in this up-to-date and efficient institution the biggest
+implement for cutting grass which was in use, a sickle of course, had
+a blade no longer than 8 inches. Hung up at the back of a shed I
+noticed a rusty scythe. When I tried to show what it could do it was
+suggested that the implement was "too heavy, too difficult and too
+dangerous."
+
+Iwate is the poorest of the northern prefectures, for bad weather so
+often comes when the rice is in flower. As many as 40 per cent. of the
+people were just making ends meet. Another 40 per cent. were always
+dogged by poverty. Millet was the food of 10 per cent. of the farmers;
+millet, salted vegetables and bean soup were the meagre diet of 5 per
+cent; the staple food of the remainder was barley and rice. There are
+few temples in Iwate compared with the rest of Japan. "Education is
+more backward than in other prefectures," someone said. "The farmers
+are not able. Too much _saké_ is drunk." Farmers come in to Morioka to
+sell charcoal and wood and I saw some of them turning into the _saké_
+shops.
+
+There was talk in praise of millet. Though low socially in the dietary
+of Japan, it has merits. It withstands cold and even salt spray. It
+ripens earlier than rice and so may sometimes be harvested before a
+spell of bad weather. It yields well, it will store for some time, its
+taste is "little inferior to rice and better than that of barley" and
+it contains more protein than rice. It is cooked after slight
+polishing and the straw provides fodder. "In the north-east, where
+millet is most eaten," I was told, "there are people who are 5 ft. 10
+ins. to 6 ft. and there are many wrestlers." The seeds in the handsome
+heavy ears of millet are about the size of the letter O in the
+footnote type of this book.
+
+In the train a farmer who knew the prefecture spoke of _Bon_ songs
+and dances: "The result of the action against them was not good. The
+meeting of young men and women at the _Bon_ gatherings was in their
+minds half the year in prospect and half in retrospect. Bearing in
+mind the condition of the people, even the worst _Bon_ songs are not
+objectionable. But when the people become educated some songs will be
+objectionable."
+
+Visitors to a poor prefecture like Miyagi must be surprised to see so
+much adjusted paddy. There is more adjusted paddy in Miyagi than in
+any other prefecture. Some 90,000 acres have been taken in hand and a
+large amount of money has been spent. The work has been carried out
+largely by way of giving wages to farmers during famine. A new tunnel
+brought water to 6,000 acres. "The bad climate of Miyagi cannot be
+mended," I was told; "all that can be done is to seek for the earliest
+varieties of rice, to sow early, to work as diligently as possible and
+to deal with floods by embanking the rivers and by tree planting." As
+many as 7,000 people go from Miyagi to Hokkaido in a year. It seems to
+point to a certain amount of fecklessness that 15 per cent. of them
+return.
+
+One man I spoke with during my journey south gave a vivid impression
+of the influence of young men's associations. "Before they started,"
+said he, "the young men spent their time in singing indecent songs, in
+gambling, in talking foolishly, and twice or thrice a year in
+immorality. A young widow has sometimes been at fault; the
+parents-in-law need her help and village sentiment is against her
+remarriage. The suppression of _Bon_ dances has done more harm than
+good by keeping out of sight what used to be said and done
+openly[168]. Two or three priests are active in this prefecture. Where
+the Shinshu sect is strong you will find little divorce. But the
+influence of Buddhism has been stationary in recent years. There is
+some action by missionaries of the Japanese Christian church, but the
+number of Christians among real rustics is very small."
+
+At Sendai it was pleasant to see a prefectural office--or most of
+it--housed in a Japanese building instead of a dreadful edifice "in
+Western style." In feudal times the building was a school. Portraits
+of daimyos and famous scholars of the Sendai clan surround the
+Governor's room, and adjoining it is the _tatami_-covered apartment in
+which the daimyo used to sit when he was present at the examinations.
+Among the portraits is one of a retainer which was painted in Rome,
+where he had been sent on a mission of inquiry.
+
+[Illustration: A SCARECROW.--A SKETCH BY PROFESSOR NASU.]
+
+In his scarecrow-making the Japanese farmer seems to have great faith
+in the Western-style cap, felt hat, or even umbrella, if he can get
+hold of one. Ordinarily, the bogey man has a bow with the arrow
+strung. Occasionally a farmer seeks to scare birds by means of
+clappers which he places in the hands of a child or an old man who
+sits in a rough shelter raised high enough to overtop the rice. Now
+and then there is a clapper connected with a string to the farm-house.
+I have also seen a row of bamboos carried across a paddy field with a
+square piece of wood hanging loosely against each one. A rope
+connecting all the bamboos with one another was carried to the
+roadway, and now and then a passer-by of a benevolent disposition, or
+with nothing better to do, or, it may be, standing in some degree of
+relationship to the paddy-field proprietor, gave the rope a tug. Then
+all the bamboos bent, and as they smartly straightened themselves
+caused the clappers to give forth a sound sufficiently agitating to
+sparrow pillagers in several paddies.
+
+On leaving Miyagi we were once more in Fukushima, with notes on which
+this account of a trip to the north of Japan and back again began.
+This time, instead of journeying by routes through the centre of the
+prefecture, as in coming north, or as in the visit paid to Fukushima
+in the Tokyo-to-Niigata journey, I travelled along the sea coast. When
+we had passed through Fukushima we were in Ibaraki, a characteristic
+feature of which is swamps. Drainage operations have been going on
+since the time of the Shogunate. There is in this prefecture the
+biggest production of beans in Japan, and we have come far enough
+south to see tea frequently. In the lower half of the prefecture we
+are in the great Kwanto plain, the prefectures in which are most
+conveniently surveyed from Tokyo.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[160] Some Yamagata notes and those relating to Akita are conveniently
+included in this Chapter, but these two prefectures are on the west
+coast.
+
+[161] A _rin_ is the tenth part of a sen, which in its turn is a
+farthing.
+
+[162] A kind of barley sugar.
+
+[163] Bean soup.
+
+[164] A street in Akita in which many prostitutes live.
+
+[165] Closet.
+
+[166] Bean paste.
+
+[167] The warm black current from the south flows up the east and west
+coasts. Some distance north of Tokyo, the east-coast current meets the
+cold Oyashiro current from Kamchatka, and is turned off towards
+America.
+
+[168] See _A Free Farmer in a Free State_, pp. 173-4, for an account
+of the custom in Zeeland by which peasants preserved themselves from
+the calamity of childless marriage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+A MIDNIGHT TALK
+
+True religion is a relation, accordant with reason and knowledge, which
+man establishes with the infinite life surrounding him, and it is such as
+binds his life to that infinity, and guides his conduct.--TOLSTOY
+
+
+One of the most instructive experiences I had during my rural journeys
+occurred one night when I was staying at a country inn. At a late hour
+I was told that the Governor of the prefecture was in a room overhead.
+I had called on him a few days before in his prefectural capital. He
+was a large daimyo-like figure, dignified and courteous, but seemingly
+impenetrable. There was no depth in our talk. His aloof and
+uncommunicative manner was deterring, but by this time I had learnt
+the elementary lesson of unending patience and freedom from hasty
+judgment that is the first step to an advance in knowledge of another
+race. I felt that I should like to know more about the man inside this
+Excellency. No one had told me anything of his life.
+
+Now that he was in the same inn with me it was Japanese good manners
+to pay him a visit. So I went upstairs with my travelling companion,
+telling him on the way that we should not remain more than five
+minutes. We were wearing our bath kimonos. The Governor was also at
+his ease in one of these garments. He was kneeling at a low table
+reading. We knelt at the other side, spoke on general topics, asked
+one or two questions and began to take our leave. On this the Governor
+said that he would like very much to ask me in turn some questions. We
+spoke together until one in the morning, his Excellency continually
+expressing his unwillingness for us to go. He spoke rapidly and with
+such earnestness that I was balked of understanding what he said
+sentence by sentence. The next day my companion wrote out a summary
+of what the Governor had said and I had tried to say in reply. As a
+brief report of a talk of three hours' duration it is plainly
+imperfect. The artless account is of some interest, however, because
+it furnishes an impression at once of an engaging simplicity and
+sincerity in the Japanese character and of the pressure of Western
+ideas.
+
+_Governor_: "There have died lately my mother, my wife and one of my
+daughters. Some of my officials come to me and ask what consolation I
+am getting. What do I feel at first when such things happen? Am I
+content under such misfortune? I feel that I should be happy if I
+could believe something and tell it to them. I am tormented by the
+conflict of my scientific and religious feelings. How is the relation
+of science and religion in your mind? Are you tormented or are you
+composed and peaceful even when meeting such misfortune as mine?"
+
+_Myself_: "It is certain that it is not well to torment ourselves, for
+grief is loss.[169] As to science, it did not drive away religion.
+Science seeks after truth in all matters, but there are truths which
+are to be searched out through our feeling, conscience and instinct.
+Religion has to do with these truths. It is quite good for religion if
+all superstition, dogma and ignorance are cleared away by science.
+Concerning a future life, we are hampered in our thinking by our
+traditions, prejudices, deep ignorance and poor mental strength and
+training; and much energy is needed in the world for present service.
+Some have thought of an immortality which is that a man's sincere
+influence, his unselfish manifestations, those things which are the
+essence of a man's existence, will live on; in other words, that the
+best of a life is immortal; but not in the way of ghosts. As to the
+memory, example and achievement of the dead it is sure that we are
+aided by them."
+
+_Governor_: "If we sacrifice ourselves for the public good it is the
+best that we can do in this world. But are you composed at the sad
+news concerning the _Lusitania_? If you think that event was directed
+by divine destiny then you can be composed and may not complain."
+
+_Myself_: "Such an accident may only be by divine destiny in the sense
+that everything in this world, the saddest misery, the greatest
+misfortunes, are suffered in the development of mankind, so that even
+this War is unquestionably for the final betterment of the whole
+world."
+
+_Governor_: "Please say what is God."
+
+_Myself_: "'If I could tell you what God is, I should be God myself.'
+Many of my own countrymen have been taught that God is 'Spirit,
+infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His Being, wisdom, power, holiness,
+justice, goodness and truth.' There are those who would say that God
+may be the total developing or bettering energy, and that we are all
+part of God. Some people have a more personal conception of God, the
+sum of all goodness. May not his Excellency consider the peasant's
+idea of a Governor of a prefecture? The peasant's idea of a Governor
+is greater than that of any particular Governor. His Excellency's good
+works are not done by himself alone, but by all the good energies
+inherent in the Governorship. Those energies are unseen but real. The
+Japanese army and navy triumphed by the virtue of the Emperor--by the
+virtue of ideas."
+
+_Governor_: "The thought of _Sensei_[170] is quite Oriental."
+
+_Myself_: "All religions are from Asia."
+
+_Governor_: "This world where stars move, flowers blossom and decay,
+spring and autumn come, and people are born and die is too full of
+mystery, but I can feel some intelligence working through it though
+incomprehensible."
+
+_Myself_: "Alas, people will try to explain that
+incomprehensibleness."
+
+_Governor_: "What you have said is what I have been accepting to this
+day. It satisfies my reason, but I feel in my heart something lacking.
+I seek for a warmer interpretation of the world, for a more heartfelt
+relation with cosmos. Several of my officials themselves lost their
+dear children recently. They cannot with heart and brain accept their
+loss, and they ask my direction."
+
+_Myself_: "In the New Testament one thing is taught, God is Love. We
+can be composed if we feel that God is love. The Gospel of John is the
+most tender story in the world."
+
+_Governor_: "It may be difficult for all people to come to the same
+point and agree altogether. We must solve a great problem by
+ourselves."
+
+_Myself_: "We have opportunities of doing some good works in this
+life. Therefore we must go on till we die and we must be content at
+being able to do something good, directly or indirectly, in however
+small measure. 'Earth is not as thou ne'er hadst been,' wrote an
+Englishwoman poet of great scientific ability[171] who died while yet
+a young woman."
+
+_Governor_: "I think of Napoleon dying tormented on St. Helena, and
+the peaceful attitude of Socrates though being poisoned by enemies.
+But Socrates had done many good things, yet he was poisoned."
+
+_Myself_: "Socrates had done what he could for his country and the
+world, yet by his brave death he could add one thing more."[172]
+
+The Governor said that he "got comfort from our talk," but this did
+not perfectly reassure me. The next evening, however, I found a
+parboiled Governor alone in the bath and he greeted me very warmly.
+Without our interpreter we could say nothing that mattered, but we
+were glad of this further meeting in the friendly hot water. It seemed
+that our midnight talk would be memorable to both of us.
+
+It is convenient to copy out here the following dicta on religion and
+morals which were delivered to me at various times during my journeys:
+
+A. "The weakest deterrent influence among us is, 'It is wrong.' A
+stronger deterrent influence is, 'Heaven will punish you.' The
+strongest deterrent influence of all is, 'Everybody will laugh at
+you.'"
+
+B. "In Japan all religions have been turned into sentiment or
+æstheticism."
+
+C. (_after speaking appreciatively of the ideas animating many
+Japanese Christians_): "All the same I do not feel quite safe about
+trusting the future of Japan to those people."
+
+D. "We Japanese have never been spiritually gifted. We are neither
+meditative and reflective like the Hindus nor individualistic like the
+Anglo-Saxons. Nevertheless, like all mankind we have spiritual
+yearnings. They will be best stirred by impulses from without."
+
+E. (_in answer to my enquiry whether a Quakerism which compromised on
+war, as John Brights male descendants had done, might not gain many
+adherents in Japan_): "Other sects may have a smaller ultimate chance
+than Quakerism. One mistake made by the Quakers was in going to work
+first among the poorer classes. The Quakers ought to have begun with
+the intellectual classes, for every movement in Japan is from the
+top."
+
+F. "You will notice what a number of the gods of Japan are deified
+men. There is a good side to the earth earthy, but many Japanese seem
+unable to worship anything higher than human beings. The readiest key
+to the religious feeling of the Japanese is the religious life of the
+Greeks. The more I study the Greeks the more I see our resemblance to
+them in many ways, in all ways, perhaps, except two, our lack of
+philosophy and our lack of physical comeliness."
+
+G. "As to uncomeliness there are several Japanese types. The refined
+type is surely attractive. If many Japanese noses seem to be too
+short, foreigners' noses seem to us to be too long. The results of
+intermarriage between Western people and Japanese who are of equal
+social and educational status and of good physique should be closely
+watched."
+
+H. "In our schools an hour or two a week is reserved for culture, but
+the true spirit of culture is lacking. The Imperial Rescript on
+education is very good moral doctrine, but the real life's aim of many
+of us is to be well off, to have an automobile, to become a Baron or
+to extend the Empire. We do not ask ourselves, 'For what reason?'"
+
+I. "I conduct certain classes which the clerks of my bank must attend.
+The teaching I give is based on Confucian, Christian and Buddhist
+principles. I try to make the young men more manful. I constantly urge
+upon them that 'you must be a man before you can be a clerk.'"
+
+J. (_a septuagenarian ex-daimyo_): "Confucianism is the basis of my
+life, but twice a month I serve at my Shinto shrine and I conduct a
+Buddhist service in my house morning and evening. It is necessary to
+make the profession that Buddha saves us. I do not believe in
+paradise. It is paradise if when I die I have a peaceful mind due to a
+feeling that I have done my duty in life and that my sons are not bad
+men. Unless I am peaceful on my deathbed I cannot perish but must
+struggle on. Therefore my sons must be good. I myself strove to be
+filial and I have always said to my sons, 'Fathers may not be fathers
+but sons must be sons.'"
+
+K. (_the preceding speaker's son expressing his opinion on another
+occasion_): "My father as a Confucian is kind to people negatively. We
+want to be kind positively because it is right to be kind. As to
+filial obedience, even fathers may err; we are righteous if we are
+right. My father is a Shintoist because it is our national custom. He
+wants to respect his ancestors in a wide sense and he desires that
+Japan, his family and his crops may be protected."
+
+L. "I wish foreigners had a juster idea about 'idols'. There is a
+difference between frequenters of the temples believing the figures to
+be holy and believing them to be gods. Every morning my mother serves
+before her shrine of Buddha but she does not believe our Buddha to be
+God. She would not soil or irreverently handle our Buddha, but it is
+only holy as a symbol, as an image of a holy being. My mother has said
+to me, 'Buddha is our father. He looks after us always; I cannot but
+thank him. If there be after life Buddha will lead me to Paradise.
+There is no reason to beg a favour.' My mother is composed and
+peaceful. All through her life she has met calamities and troubles
+serenely. I admire her very much. She is a good example of how
+Buddha's influence makes one peaceful and spiritual. But such
+religious experience may not be grasped from the outside by
+foreigners."
+
+M. "When I am in a temple or at a shrine I realise its value in
+concentrating attention. The daily domestic service before the shrine
+in the house also ensures some religious life daily. Many of my
+countrymen no doubt regard religion as superstition; they know little
+of spiritual life. For some of them patriotism or humanitarian
+sentiments or eagerness to seek after scientific truth takes the place
+of religion. Most men think that they can never comprehend the cosmos
+and say, 'We may believe only what we can prove. Let us follow not
+after preachers but after truth.' I believe with your Western
+philosophers who say that the cosmos is not perfect but that it is
+moving towards perfection. Many think that this War shows that the
+cosmos is not perfect. Spiritual life is living according to one's
+purest consciousness. But what is of first importance is our actions.
+It is not enough merely to strive after moral development. One must
+strive after economic and social development. Some religious people
+think only of the spiritual life and have no sympathy with economics.
+The labours of such religious people must be of small value."
+
+In later Chapters the views of other thoughtful Japanese are noted
+down as they were communicated to me.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[169] "The strength that is given at such times arises not from
+ignoring loss or persuading oneself that the thing is not that _is_,
+but from the resolute setting of the face to the East and the taking
+of one step forwards. Anything that detaches one, that makes one turn
+from the past and look simply at what one has to do, brings with it
+new strength and new intensity of interest."--HALDANE.
+
+[170] Teacher, instructor, master, or a polite way of saying
+"You"--the usual title by which I was addressed.
+
+[171] Constance Naden.
+
+[172] "The _Phaedo_ was bought for us by the death of
+Socrates."--QUILLER COUCH.
+
+[Illustration: THE BLIND HEADMAN AND HIS COLLECTING-BAG.]
+
+[Illustration: MR. YANAGHITA IN HIS CORONATION CEREMONY ROBES.]
+
+[Illustration: PORTABLE APPARATUS FOR RAISING WATER.]
+
+[Illustration: VILLAGE SCHOOL WITH PORTRAIT OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.]
+
+[Illustration: RIVER-BEDS IN THE SUMMER From which may be imagined
+the power of the water in time of flood.]
+
+
+
+
+THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+LANDLORDS, PRIESTS AND "BASHA"
+(TOKUSHIMA, KOCHI AND KAGAWA)
+
+The most capital article, the character of the inhabitants.--TYTLER
+
+
+In travelling southwards I noticed between Kyoto and Osaka that farms
+were being irrigated from wells in the primitive way by means of the
+weighted swinging pole and bucket. Along the coast to the south,
+indeed as far as Hiroshima, there have been great gains from the sea,
+and in the neighbourhood of Kobe there are three parallel roads which
+mark successive recoveries of land. Before crossing the Inland Sea at
+Okayama to Shikoku (area about 1,000 square miles) I visited one of
+the new settlements on recovered land. The labour available from a
+family was reckoned as equal to that of two men, and as much as 4 to 5
+_chō_ was allotted to each house. It will be seen how much larger is
+this area--5 _chō_ is 12-1/2 acres--than the average Japanese farming
+family must be content with, a little less than 3 acres. The company
+supplied houses, seeds, manures, etc., and after all expenses were met
+the workers were allowed 25 per cent, of the net income of their
+summer crop and 35 per cent, of the net income of their second crop.
+The cultivation was directed by the company. There had been 300
+applications for the last twenty houses built. An experiment station
+was maintained, and a campaign against a rice borer had been of
+benefit to the amount of about 10,000 yen. I found the company's
+winnowing machine discharging its chaff into the furnace of the
+rice-drying apparatus.
+
+One of the experts of the company came with me for some distance in
+the train in order to discuss some of his problems. He thought
+agricultural work could be done in less back-breaking ways. He wanted
+a small threshing machine which would be suitable not only for
+threshing small quantities of rice or corn but for easy conveyance
+along the narrow and easily damaged paths between the rice fields. If
+he had such a machine he would like to improve it so that it would lay
+out the threshed straw evenly, so making the straw more valuable for
+the many uses to which it is put. He wished to see a machine invented
+for planting out rice seedlings and another contrivance devised for
+drying wheat. The company's rice-drying machine handled 200 _koku_ of
+rice a day, but there were difficulties in drying wheat. (In many
+places I noticed the farmers drying their corn by the primitive method
+of singeing it and thus spoiling it.)[173]
+
+On the Inland Sea, aboard the smart little steamer of the Government
+Railways, my companion spoke of the extent to which sea-faring men, a
+conservative class, had abandoned the use of the single square sail
+which one sees in Japanese prints; the little vessels had been
+re-rigged in Western fashion. But many superstitions had survived the
+abolished square sails. The mother of my fellow-traveller once told
+him that, when she crossed the Inland Sea in an old-style ship and a
+storm arose, the shipmaster earnestly addressed the passengers in
+these words, "Somebody here must be unclean; if so, please tell me
+openly." The title of the book my companion was reading was _The
+History of the Southern Savage_. Who was the "Southern Savage"? The
+word is _namban_, the name given to the early Portuguese and Spanish
+voyagers to Japan. (The Dutch were called _komojin_, red-haired men.)
+In looking through the official railway guide on the boat I saw that
+there was a list of specially favourable places for viewing the moon.
+An M.P. passenger told me that the average cost of getting returned to
+the Diet was 10,000 yen[174].
+
+The difficulties of communication in Shikoku are so considerable that
+I was compelled to leave the two prefectures of Tokushima and Kochi
+unvisited. Kochi is without a yard of railway line. In the prefecture
+of Ehime most of my journey had to be made by _kuruma_. Communication
+between the four prefectures of Shikoku--the one in which I landed was
+Kagawa--is largely conducted by coasting steamers and sailing craft.
+An interesting thing in Kochi is the area by the sea in which two
+crops of rice are grown in the year. Tokushima holds a leading place
+in the production of indigo. At one place in the hills the adventurous
+have the satisfaction of crossing a river by means of suspension
+bridges made of vine branches.
+
+The streets of Takamatsu, the capital of Kagawa, are many of them so
+narrow that the shopkeepers on either side have joint sun screens
+which they draw right across the thoroughfares. Here I found the carts
+hauled by a smallish breed of cow. The placid animals are handier in a
+narrow place and less expensive than horses. They are shod, like their
+drivers, in _waraji_. In Shikoku the cow or ox is generally used in
+the paddies instead of the horse. "It is slower but strong and can
+plough deep," one agricultural expert said. "It eats cheaper food than
+the horse, which moves too fast in a small paddy. Cows and oxen are
+probably not working for more than seventy-five or eighty days in the
+year."
+
+At Takamatsu I had the opportunity of visiting a daimyo's castle. I
+was impressed by its strength not only because of the wide moats but
+because of the series of earthen fortifications faced with cyclopean
+stonework through which an invading force must wind its way. There was
+within the walls a surprisingly large drilling ground for troops and
+also an extensive drug garden. The present owner of the castle
+proposed to build here a library and a museum for the town. I was glad
+of the opportunity to ascend one of the high pagoda-like towers so
+familiar in Japanese paintings. I was disillusioned. Instead of
+finding myself in beautiful rooms for the enjoyment of marvellous
+views and sea breezes I had to clamber over the roughest cob-webbed
+timbers. One storey was connected with another by a stair of rude
+planking. Such pagodas were built only for their military value as
+lookouts and for their delightful appearance from the outside.
+
+The town now enjoyed as a park of more than ten acres the grounds of a
+subsidiary residence of the daimyo. The magnificent trees, with lakes,
+rivulets and hills fashioned with infinite art,[175] and the
+background of natural hill and woodland, made in all a possession
+which exhibited the delectable possibilities of Japanese gardening. An
+occasional electric light amid the trees gave an effect in the evening
+in which Japanese delight. Some of the old carp which dashed up to the
+bridges when they heard our footsteps seemed to be not far short of 3
+ft. long.
+
+Except for a small patch of sugar cane in Shidzuoka--it is grown
+practically on the sea beach where it is visible from the express--the
+visitor to Japan may never see sugar cane until Shikoku is reached.
+The value of the crop in the whole island is about 800,000 yen. The
+tall cane is conspicuous alongside the more diminutive rice. In this
+prefecture an experiment is being made in growing olives.
+
+Kagawa is remarkable in having had until lately 30,000 pond reservoirs
+for the irrigation of rice fields. Under the new system of rice-field
+adjustment many of the ponds are joined together. Because in Shikoku
+flat tracts of land or tracts that can be made flat are limited in
+number the farmers have to be content with small pieces of land. The
+average area of farm in Kagawa outside the mountainous region is less
+than two acres. When the farms are near the sea, as they commonly are,
+the agriculturists may also be fishermen.
+
+The number of place names ending in _ji_ (temple) proclaims the former
+flourishing condition of Buddhism. Shikoku is a great resort of
+white-clothed pilgrims. Sometimes it is a solitary man whom one sees
+on the road, sometimes a company of men, occasionally a family. Not
+seldom the pilgrim or his companion is manifestly suffering from some
+affection which the pilgrimage is to cure. In the old days it was not
+unusual to send the victim of "the shameful disease" or of an
+incurable ailment on a pilgrimage from shrine to shrine or temple to
+temple. He was not expected to return. In Shikoku there are
+eighty-eight temples to Buddha and the founder of the Shingon sect,
+and it is estimated that it would mean a 760 miles' journey to visit
+them all.
+
+We went off our route at one point where my companion wished to visit
+a gorgeous shrine. A guidebook said that people flocked there "by the
+million," but what I was told was that last year's attendance was
+80,000. The street leading to the approach to the shrine was in a
+series of steps. On either side were the usual shops with piled-up
+mementoes in great variety and of no little ingenuity, and also, on
+spikes, little stacks of _rin_--the old copper coin with a square hole
+through the middle--into which the economical devotee takes care to
+exchange a few sen. We climbed to the shrine when twilight was coming
+on. At the point where the series of street steps ended there began a
+new series of about a thousand steps belonging to the shrine. A
+thousand granite steps may be tiring after a hot day's travel in a
+_kuruma_. All the way up to the shrine there were granite pillars
+almost brand new, first short ones, then taller, then taller still,
+and after these a few which topped the tallest. They were
+conspicuously inscribed with the names of donors to the shrine. A
+small pillar was priced at 10 yen. What the big, bigger and biggest
+cost I do not know. I turned from the pillars to the stone lanterns.
+"They burn cedar wood, I believe," said my companion. But soon
+afterwards I saw a man working at them with a length of electric-light
+wire.
+
+The great shrine was impressive in the twilight. There was a platform
+near, and from it we looked down from the tree-covered heights through
+the growing darkness. Where the lights of the town twinkled there was
+a subsidiary shrine. A bare-headed, kimono-clad sailor stepped forward
+near us and bowed his head to some semblance of deity down there.
+Various fishermen had brought the anchors of their ships and the oars
+of their boats to show forth their thankfulness for safety at sea. In
+the murkiness I was just able to pick out the outlines of a bronze
+horse which stands at the shrine, "as a sort of scape-goat," my
+companion explained. "It is probably Buddhist," he said; "but you can
+never be sure; these priests embellish the history of their temples
+so."
+
+It was at the inn in the evening that someone told me that in the town
+which is dependent on the shrine there were "a hundred prostitutes,
+thirty geisha and some waitresses." Late at night I had a visit from a
+man in a position of great responsibility in the prefecture. He was at
+a loss to know what could be done for morality. "Religion is not
+powerful," he said, "the schools do not reach grown-up people, the
+young men's societies are weak, many sects and new moralities are
+attacking our people, and there are many cheap books of a low class."
+
+Next day I laid this view before a group of landlords. They did not
+reply for a little and my skilful interpreter said, "they are thinking
+deeply." At length one of them delivered himself to this effect:
+"Landowners hereabouts are mostly of a base sort. They always consider
+things from a material and personal point of view. But if they are
+attacked and made to act more for the public good it may have an
+effect on rural conditions which are now low."
+
+I enquired about the new sects of Buddhism and Shintoism, for there
+had been pointed out to me in some villages "houses of new religions."
+"New religions in many varieties are coming into the villages," I was
+told, "and extravagant though they may be are influencing people. The
+adherents seem to be moral and modest, and they pay their taxes
+promptly. There is a so-called Shinto sect which was started twenty
+years ago by an ignorant woman. It has believers in every part of
+Japan. It is rather communistic."[176] None of the landlords who
+talked with me believed in the possibility of a "revival of Buddhism."
+One of them noted that "people educated in the early part of Meiji are
+most materialistic. It is a sorrowful circumstance that the officials
+ask only materialistic questions of the villagers."
+
+I asked one of the landlords about his tenants. He said that his
+"largest tenant" had no more than 1.3 _tan_ of paddy. It was explained
+that "tenants are obedient to the landowner in this prefecture." Under
+the system of official rewards which exists in Japan, 1,086 persons in
+the prefecture had been "rewarded" by a kind of certificate of merit
+and nine with money--to the total value of 26 yen.
+
+When I drew attention to the fact that the manufacture of _saké_ and
+_soy_ seemed to be frequently in the hands of landowners it was
+explained to me that formerly this was their industry exclusively.
+Even now "whereas an ordinary shop-keeper is required by etiquette to
+say 'Thank you' to his customer, a purchaser of _saké_ or _soy_ says
+'Thank you' to the shop-keeper."
+
+The flower arrangement in my room in the inn consisted of an effective
+combination of _hagi_ (_Lespedeza bicolor_, a leguminous plant
+which is grown for cattle and has been a favourite subject of Japanese
+poetry), a cabbage, a rose, a begonia and leaf and a fir branch.
+
+A landowner I chatted with in the train showed me that it was a
+serious matter to receive the distinction of growing the millet for
+use at the Coronation. One of his friends who was growing 5 _sh=o_,
+the actual value of which might be 50 or 60 sen, was spending on it
+first and last about 3,000 yen.
+
+I enquired about the diversions of landowners. It is easy, of course,
+to have an inaccurate impression of the extent of their leisure. Only
+about 1 per cent, have more than 25 acres.[177] Therefore most of
+these men are either farmers themselves or must spend a great deal of
+time looking after their tenants. Still, some landowners are able to
+take things rather easily. The landowners I interrogated marvelled at
+the open-air habits of English landed proprietors. They were greatly
+surprised when I told them of a countess who is a grandmother but
+thinks nothing of a canter before breakfast. The mark of being well
+off was often to stay indoors or at any rate within garden walls,
+which necessarily enclose a very small area. (Hence the fact that one
+object of Japanese gardening is to suggest a much larger space than
+exists.) A good deal of time is spent "in appreciating fine arts."
+Ceremonial tea drinking still claims no small amount of attention. (In
+many gardens and in the grounds of hotels of any pretensions one comes
+on the ostentatiously humble chamber for _Cha-no-yu_.) No doubt there
+is among many landowners a considerable amount of drinking of
+something stronger than tea, and not a few men sacrifice freely to
+Venus. Perhaps the greatest claimant of all on the time of those who
+have time to spare is the game of _go_, which is said to be more
+difficult than chess. One cannot but remark the comparatively pale
+faces of many landowners.
+
+As we went along by the coast it was pointed out to me that it was
+from this neighbourhood that some of the most indomitable of the
+old-time pirates set sail on their expeditions to ravage the Chinese
+coast. They visited that coast all the way from Vladivostock, now
+Russian (and like to be Japanese), to Saigon, now French. There are
+many Chinese books discussing effectual methods of repelling the
+pirates. In an official Japanese work I once noticed, in the
+enumeration of Japanese rights in Taiwan (Formosa), the naïve claim
+that long ago it was visited by Japanese pirates! The Japanese
+fisherman is still an intrepid person, and in villages which have an
+admixture of fishing folk the seafarers, from their habit of following
+old customs and taking their own way generally, are the constant
+subject of rural reformers' laments.
+
+I spent some time in a typical inland village. The very last available
+yard of land was utilised. The cottages stood on plots buttressed by
+stone, and only the well-to-do had a yard or garden; paddy came right
+up to the foundations. Now that the rice was high no division showed
+between the different paddy holdings. I noticed here that the round,
+carefully concreted manure tank which each farmer possessed had a
+reinforced concrete hood. I asked a landowner who was in a comfortable
+position what societies there were in his village. He mentioned a
+society "to console old people and reward virtue." Then there was the
+society of householders, such as is mentioned in Confucius, which met
+in the spring and autumn, and ate and drank and discussed local
+topics "with open heart." There were sometimes quarrels due to
+_saké_. Indeed, some villagers seemed to save up their differences
+until the householders' meeting at its _saké_ stage. At householders'
+meetings where there was no _saké_ peace appeared to prevail. The
+householders' meeting was a kind of informal village assembly. That
+assembly itself ordinarily met twice a year. There were in the
+village, in addition to the householders' organisation, the usual
+reservists' association, the young men's society and agricultural
+association. As to _kō_, from philanthropic motives my informant was a
+member of no fewer than ten.
+
+My host told me that he spent a good deal of time in playing _go_, but
+in the shooting season (October 15 to April 15) he made trips to the
+hills and shot pheasants, hares, pigeons and deer. In the garden of
+his house two gardeners were stretched along the branches of a pine
+tree, nimbly and industriously picking out the shoots in order to get
+that bare appearance which has no doubt puzzled many a Western student
+of Japanese tree pictures. Each man's ladder--two lengths of bamboo
+with rungs tied on with string--was carefully leant against a pole
+laid from the ground through the branches. Many of the well-cared-for
+trees in the gardens and public places of Japan pass the winter in
+neat wrappings of straw.
+
+I visited a farm-house and found the farmer making baskets. When I was
+examining the winnowing machine my companion reminded me smilingly
+that when he was a boy he was warned never to turn the wheel of the
+winnowing machine when the contrivance had no grain in it or a demon
+might come out. There was a properly protected tank of liquid manure
+and a well-roofed manure house. The family bath in an open shed was of
+a sort I had not seen before, a kind of copper with a step up to it.
+Straw rope about three-quarters of an inch in diameter was being made
+by the farmer's son, a day's work being 40 yds. At another farm a
+woman showed me the working of a rough loom with which she could in a
+day make a score of mats worth in all 60 sen. From the farmer's house
+I went to the room of the young men's association and looked over its
+library. I was impressed by the high level of civilisation which this
+village seemed to exhibit in essentials.
+
+When we continued our journey we saw two portable water wheels by
+means of which water was being lifted into a paddy. Each wheel was
+worked by a man who continually ascended the floats. The two men were
+able to leave their wheels in turn for a rest, for a third man was
+stretched on the ground in readiness for his spell. It seems that a
+man can keep on the water tread-mill for an hour. The two wheels
+together were lifting an amazing amount of water at a great rate. When
+the pumping is finished one of these light water wheels is easily
+carried home on a man's shoulders.
+
+Farther on I saw in a dry river bed a man sieving gravel in an
+ingenious way. The trouble in sieving gravel is that if the sieve be
+filled to its capacity the shaking soon becomes tiring. This man had a
+square sieve which when lying on the ground was attached at one side
+by two ropes to a firmly fixed tripod of poles. When the sieve was
+filled the labourer lifted it far enough away from the tripod for it
+to be swinging on one side. Therefore when he shook the sieve he
+sustained a portion only of its weight.
+
+As we rode along I was told that the largest taxpayer in the county
+"does not live in idleness but does many good works." The next largest
+taxpayer "labours every day in the field." When I enquired as to the
+recreations of moneyed men I was told "travelling, _go_ and poem
+writing."
+
+As we rode by the sea a trustworthy informant pointed out to me an
+islet where he said the young men have the young women in common and
+"give permission for them to marry." There is a house in which the
+girls live together at a particular time and are then free from the
+attentions of the youths. Children born are brought up in the families
+of the mothers but there is some infanticide. In another little island
+off the coast there are only two classes of people, the seniors and
+the juniors. Any person senior to any other "may give him orders and
+call him by his second name." (The surname comes first in Japanese
+names.)
+
+Our route led us along the track of the new railway line which was
+penetrating from Kagawa into Ehime. Not for the first time on my
+journeys was I told of the corrupting influence exerted on the
+countryside by the imported "navvies," if our Western name may be
+applied to men who in figure and dress look so little like the big
+fellows who do the same kind of work in England. Although these
+navvies were a rough lot and our ancient _basha_ (a kind of
+four-wheeled covered carriage) was a thing for mirth, we met with no
+incivility as we picked our way among them for a mile or two. I was a
+witness indeed of a creditable incident. A handcart full of earth was
+being taken along the edge of the roadway, with one man in the shafts
+and another pushing behind. Suddenly a wheel slipped over the side of
+the roadway, the cart was canted on its axle, the man in the shafts
+received a jolt and the cargo was shot out. Had our sort of navvies
+been concerned there would have been words of heat and colour. The
+Japanese laughed.
+
+The reference to our venerable _basha_ reminds me of a well-known
+story which was once told me by a Japanese as a specimen of Japanese
+humour. A _basha_, I may explain, has rather the appearance of a
+vehicle which was evolved by a Japanese of an economical turn after
+hearing a description of an omnibus from a foreigner who spoke very
+little Japanese and had not been home for forty years. The body of the
+vehicle is just high enough and the seats just wide enough for
+Japanese. So the foreigner continually bumps the roof, and when he is
+not bumping the roof he has much too narrow a seat to sit on.
+Sometimes the _basha_ has springs of a sort and sometimes it has none.
+But springs would avail little on the rural roads by which many
+_basha_ travel. The only tolerable place for Mr. Foreigner in a
+_basha_ is one of the top corner seats behind the driver, for the
+traveller may there throw an arm round one of the uprights which
+support the roof. If at an unusually hard bump he should lose his hold
+he is saved from being cast on the floor by the responsive bodies of
+his polite and sympathetic fellow-travellers who are embedded between
+him and the door. The tale goes that a tourist who was serving his
+term in a _basha_ was perplexed to find that the passengers were
+charged, some first-, some second-and some third-class fare. While he
+clung to his upright and shook with every lurch of the conveyance this
+problem of unequal fares obsessed him. It was like the persistent
+"punch-in-the-presence-of-the-passengare." What possible advantage, he
+pondered, could he as first class be getting over the second and the
+second class over the third? At length at a steep part of the road the
+vehicle stopped. The driver came round, opened the door, and bowing
+politely said: "Honourable first-class passengers will graciously
+condescend to keep their seats. Second-class passengers will be good
+enough to favour us by walking. Third-class passengers will kindly
+come out and push." And push they did, no doubt, kimonos rolled up
+thighwards, with good humour, sprightliness and cheerful grunts, as is
+the way with willing workers in Japan.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[173] At Anjo agricultural experiment station I saw eighteen kinds of
+small threshing machines at from 13 to 18 yen. There were husking
+machines of three sorts. A rice thresher was equal to dealing with the
+crop of one _tan_, estimated at 2 _koku_ 4 _to_, in three hours.
+
+[174] See Appendix XLVI.
+
+[175] It is quite possible that the trees had also come into their
+positions artificially. There are no more skilful tree movers than the
+Japanese.
+
+[176] It has recently come into collision with the authorities.
+Another sect with Shinto ideas was also started by a woman.
+
+[177] See Appendix XLVII.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+"SPECIAL TRIBES"
+
+(EHIME)
+
+A frank basis of reality.--Meredith
+
+
+In the prefecture of Ehime our journey was still by _basha_ or
+_kuruma_ and near the sea. The first man we talked with was a _gunchō_
+who said that "more than half the villages contained a strong
+character who can lead." He told us of one of the new religions which
+taught its adherents to do some good deed secretly. The people who
+accepted this religion mended roads, cleaned out ponds and made
+offerings at the graves of persons whose names were forgotten. I think
+it was this man who used the phrase, "There is a shortage of
+religions."
+
+I had not before noticed wax trees. They are slighter than apple
+trees, but often occupy about the same space as the old-fashioned
+standard apple. The clusters of berries have some resemblance to
+elderberries and would turn black if they were not picked green.[178]
+Occasionally we saw fine camphor trees. Alas, owing to the high price
+of camphor, some beautiful specimens near shrines, where they were as
+imposing as cryptomeria, had been sacrificed.
+
+I began to observe the dreadful destruction wrought in the early ear
+stage of rice not by cold but by wind. The wind knocks the plants
+against one another and the friction generates enough heat to arrest
+further development. The crops affected in this way were grey in
+patches and looked as if hot water had been sprayed over them. In one
+county the loss was put as high as 90 per cent. Happily farmers
+generally sow several sorts of rice. Therefore paddies come into ear
+at different times.
+
+The heads of millet and the threshed grain of other upland crops were
+drying on mats by the roadside, for in the areas where land is so much
+in demand there is no other space available. Sesame, not unlike
+snapdragon gone to seed, only stronger in build, was set against the
+houses. On the growing crops on the uplands dead stalks and chopped
+straw were being used as mulch.
+
+I noticed that implements seemed always to be well housed and to be
+put away clean. Handcarts, boats and the stacks of poles used in
+making frameworks for drying rice were protected from the weather by
+being thatched over.
+
+We continued to see many white-clad pilgrims and everywhere touring
+students, as often afoot as on bicycles. I noted from the registers at
+many village offices that the number of young men who married before
+performing their military service seemed to be decreasing. In one
+community, where there were two priests, one Tendai and the other
+Shingon, neither seemed to count for much. One was very poor, and
+cultivated a small patch near his temple; the other had a little more
+than a _chō_. The custom was for the farmers to present to their
+temple from 5 to 10 _shō_ of rice from the harvest.
+
+In connection with the question of improved implements I noticed that
+a reasonably efficient winnowing machine in use by a comfortably-off
+tenant was forty-nine years old--that is, that it dated back to the
+time of the Shogun. The secondary industry of this farmer was
+dwarf-plant growing. He had also a loom for cotton-cloth making. There
+were in his house, in addition to a Buddhist shrine, two Shinto
+shrines. After leaving this man I visited an ex-teacher who had lost
+his post at fifty, no doubt through being unable to keep step with
+modern educational requirements. He had on his wall the lithograph of
+Pestalozzi and the children which I saw in many school-houses.
+
+On taking the road again I was told that the local landlords had held
+a meeting in view of the losses of tenants through wind. Most had
+agreed to forgo rents and to help with artificial manure for next
+year. I found taro being grown in paddies or under irrigation. Not
+only the tubers of the taro but its finer stalks are eaten. I saw
+gourds cut into long lengths narrower than apple rings and put out to
+dry. I also noticed orange trees a century old which were still
+producing fruit. Boys were driving iron hoops--the native hoop was of
+bamboo--and one of the hoop drivers wore a piece of red cloth stitched
+on his shoulder, which indicated that he was head of his class. One
+missed a dog bounding and barking after the hoop drivers. Sometimes at
+the doors of houses I noticed dogs of the lap-dog type which one sees
+in paintings or of the wolf type to which the native outdoor dog
+belongs. The cats were as ugly as the dogs and no plumper or happier
+looking. When I patted a dog or stroked a cat the act attracted
+attention.
+
+We saw a good deal of _hinoki_ (ground cypress), the wood of which is
+still used at Shinto festivals for making fire by friction.
+
+We were able to visit an Eta village or rather _oaza_. Whether the Eta
+are largely the descendants of captives of an early era or of a low
+class of people who on the introduction of Buddhism in the seventh or
+eighth century were ostracised because of their association with
+animal eating, animal slaughter, working in leather and grave digging
+is in dispute. No doubt they have absorbed a certain number of
+fugitives from higher grades of the population, broken samurai,
+ne'er-do-weels and criminals. The situation as the foreigner discovers
+it is that all over Japan there are hamlets of what are called
+"special tribes." In 1876, when distinctions between them and Japanese
+generally were officially abolished, the total number was given as
+about a million. Most of these peculiar people, perhaps three-quarters
+of them, are known as Eta. But whether they are known as Eta or Shuku,
+or by some other name, ordinary Japanese do not care to eat with them,
+marry with them or even talk with them. In the past Eta have often
+been prosperous, and many are prosperous to-day, but a large number
+are still restricted to earning a living as butchers and skin and
+leather workers, and grave diggers. The members of these "special
+tribes," believing themselves to be despised without cause, usually
+make some effort to hide the fact that they are Eta.
+
+Shuku seem to be living principally in hamlets of a score or so of
+houses in the vicinity of Osaka, Kyoto and Nara, and are often
+travelling players, or, like some Eta, skilled in making tools and
+musical instruments. There seems to be a half Shuku or intermarried
+class. Many prostitutes are said to be Shuku or Eta. I was told that
+most of the girls in the prostitutes' houses of Shimane prefecture are
+from "special tribes," and that they are "preferred by the
+proprietors" because, as I was gravely informed, "they do not weary of
+their profession and are therefore more acceptable to customers." As
+prostitutes are frequently married by their patrons, it is believed
+that not a few women from "special villages" are taken to wife without
+their origin being known. Unwitting marriage with an Eta woman has
+long been a common motif in fiction and folk story. Many members of
+the "special tribes" go to Hokkaido and there pass into the general
+body of the population. The folk of this class are "despised," I was
+told by a responsible Japanese, "not so much for themselves as for
+what their fathers and grandfathers did." The country people
+undoubtedly treat them more harshly than the townspeople, but a man of
+the "special tribes" is often employed as a watchman of fields or
+forests. I was warned that it was judicious to avoid using the word
+Eta or Shuku in the presence of common people lest one might be
+addressing by chance a member of the "special tribes."
+
+Except that the houses of the village we were visiting looked possibly
+a trifle more primitive than those of the non-Eta population outside
+the _oaza_, I did not discern anything different from what I saw
+elsewhere. The people were of the Shinshu sect; there was no Shinto
+shrine. At the public room I noticed the gymnastic apparatus of the
+"fire defenders." The hamlet was traditionally 300 years old and one
+family was still recognised as chief. According to the constable, who
+eagerly imparted the information, the crops were larger than those of
+neighbouring villages "because the people, male and female, are always
+diligent."
+
+The man who was brought forward as the representative of the village
+was an ex-soldier and seemed a quiet, able and self-respecting but sad
+human being. His house and holding were in excellent order. None of
+his neighbours smiled on us. Some I thought went indoors needlessly; a
+few came as near to glowering as can be expected in Japan. I got the
+impression that the people were cared for but were conscious of being
+"hauden doon" or kept at arm's length.[179]
+
+Our next stop was for a rest in a fine garden, the effect of which was
+spoilt in one place by a distressing life-size statue of the owner's
+father. When we took to our _kuruma_ again we passed through a village
+at the approaches to which thick straw ropes such as are seen at
+shrines had been stretched across the road. Charms were attached. The
+object was to keep off an epidemic.
+
+The indigo leaves drying on mats in front of some of the cottages were
+a delight to the eye. There were also mats covered with cotton which
+looked like fluffy cocoons. On the telegraph wires, the poles of which
+all over Japan take short cuts through the paddies, swallows clustered
+as in England, but it is to the South Seas, not to Africa, that the
+Japanese swallow migrates. When the telegraph was a newer feature of
+the Japanese landscape than it is now swallows on the wires were a
+favourite subject for young painters.
+
+We crossed a dry river bed of considerable width at a place where the
+current had made an excavation in the gravel, rocks and earth several
+yards deep. It was an impressive illustration of the power of a heavy
+flood.
+
+I found in one mountainous county that only about a sixth of the area
+was under cultivation. A responsible man said: "This is a county of
+the biggest landlords and the smallest tenants. Too many landowners
+are thinking of themselves, so there arise sometimes severe conflicts.
+Some 4,000 tenants have gone to Hokkaido." The conversation got round
+to the young men's societies and I was told a story of how an Eta
+village threatened by floods had been saved by the young men of the
+neighbouring non-Eta village working all night at a weakened
+embankment. Some days later an Eta deputation came to the village and
+"with tears in their eyes gave thanks for what had been done." The
+comment of a Japanese friend was: "In the present state of Japan
+hypocrisy may be valuable. The boys and the Eta were at least
+exercising themselves in virtue."
+
+Four villages in this county have among them eight fish nurseries, the
+area of salt water enclosed being roughly 120 acres. I looked into
+several cottages where paper making was going on.[180]
+
+I also went into two cotton mills. In both there were girls who were
+not more than eleven or twelve. "They are exempted from school by
+national regulation because of the poverty of their parents,"[181] I
+was told.
+
+As we passed the open shop fronts of the village barbers I saw that as
+often as not a woman was shaving the customer or using the patent
+clippers on him.
+
+We looked at a big dam which an enterprising landowner was
+constructing. Three hundred women were consolidating the earthwork by
+means of round, flat blocks of granite about twice the size of a
+curling stone. Round each block was a groove in which was a leather
+belt with a number of rings threaded on it. To each ring a rope was
+attached. When these ropes were extended the granite block became the
+hub of a wheel of which the ropes were the spokes. A number of women
+and girls took ropes apiece and jerked them simultaneously, whereupon
+the granite block rose in the air to the level of the rope pullers'
+heads. It was then allowed to fall with a thud. After each thud the
+pullers moved along a foot so that the block should drop on a fresh
+spot. The gangs hauling at the rammers worked to the tune of a
+plaintive ditty which went slowly so as to give them plenty of
+breathing time. It was something like this:
+
+        Weep not,
+        Do not lament,
+        This world is as the wheel of a car.
+        If we live long,
+        We may meet again on the road.
+
+None of the sturdy earth thumpers seemed to be overworked in the
+bracing air of the dam top, and they certainly looked picturesque with
+their white and blue towels round their heads. Indeed, with all the
+singing and movement, not to speak of the refreshment stalls, the
+scene was not unlike a fair. When we got back to the road again we
+passed through a well-watered rice district which was equal to the
+production of heavy crops. Only three years before it had been covered
+by a thick forest in which it was not uncommon for robbers to lurk.
+The transformation had been brought about by the construction of a dam
+in the hills somewhat similar to the one we had just visited.
+
+I could not but notice in this district the considerable areas given
+up to grave-plots. No crematoria seemed to be in use. There had been a
+newspaper proposal that in areas where the population was very large
+in proportion to the land available for cultivation the dead should be
+taken out to sea. Where land is scarce one sees various expedients
+practised so that every square foot shall be cropped. I repeatedly
+found stacks of straw or sticks standing not on the land but on a
+rough bridge thrown for the purpose over a drainage ditch. In this
+district land had been recovered from the sea.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[178] For an account of a vegetable wax factory, see Appendix XLVIII.
+
+[179] For further particulars of Eta in Japan and America, see
+Appendix XLIX.
+
+[180] See Appendix L.
+
+[181] In 1918 net profits of 33 million yen were made by cotton
+factories. The factories are anticipating sharp competition from
+China.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE STORY OF THE BLIND HEADMAN
+
+(EHIME)
+
+The thing to do is to rise humorously above one's body which is the
+veritable rebel, not one's mind.--MEREDITH
+
+
+It is delightful to find so many things made of copper. Copper, not
+iron, is in Japan the most valuable mineral product after coal.[182]
+But there are drawbacks to a successful copper industry. Several times
+as I came along by the coast I heard how the farmers' crops had been
+damaged by the fumes of a copper refinery. "There are four copper
+refineries in Japan, who fighted very much with the farmers," it was
+explained. The Department of Agriculture is also the Department of
+Commerce and "it was embarrassed by those battles." The upshot was
+that one refinery moved to an island, another rebuilt its chimney and
+the two others agreed to pay compensation because it was cheaper than
+to install a new system. The refinery which had removed to an island
+seven miles off the coast I had been traversing had had to pay
+compensation as well as remove. I saw an apparatus that it had put up
+among rice fields to aid it in determining how often the wind was
+carrying its fumes there. The compensation which this refinery was
+paying yearly amounted to as much as 75,000 yen. It had also been
+compelled to buy up 500 _chō_ of the complaining farmers' land. When
+we ascended by _basha_ into the mountains we looked down on a copper
+mine in a ravine through which the river tumbled. The man who had
+opened the original road over the pass had had the beautiful idea of
+planting cherry trees along it so that the traveller might enjoy the
+beauty of their blossoms in spring and their foliage and outlines the
+rest of the year. The trees had attained noble proportions when the
+refinery started work and very soon killed most of them. They looked
+as if they had been struck by lightning.
+
+Some miles farther on, wherever on the mountain-side a little tract
+could be held up by walling, the chance of getting land for
+cultivation had been eagerly seized. It would be difficult to give an
+impression of the patient endeavour and skilful culture represented by
+the farming on these isolated terraces held up by Galloway dykes.
+Elsewhere the heights were tree-clad. In places, where the trees had
+been destroyed by forest fires or had been cleared, amazingly large
+areas had been closely cut over for forage. One great eminence was a
+wonderful sight with its whole side smoothed by the sickles of
+indomitable forage collectors. In some spots "fire farming" had been
+or was still being practised. Here and there the cultivation of the
+shrubs grown for the production of paper-making bark had displaced
+"fire farming." I saw patches of millet and sweet potato which from
+the road seemed almost inaccessible.
+
+On the admirable main road we passed many pack ponies carrying immense
+pieces of timber. Speaking of timber, the economical method of
+preserving wood by charring is widely practised in Japan. The
+palisades around houses and gardens and even the boards of which the
+walls or the lower part of the walls of dwellings are constructed are
+often charred. The effect is not cheerful. What does have a cheerful
+and trim effect is a thing constantly under one's notice, the habit of
+keeping carefully swept the unpaved earth enclosed by a house and
+buildings as well as the path or roadway to them. This careful
+sweeping is usually regarded as the special work of old people. Even
+old ladies in families of rank in Tokyo take pleasure in their daily
+task of sweeping.
+
+When we had crossed the pass and descended on the other side and taken
+_kuruma_ we soon came to a wide but absolutely dry river bed. The high
+embankments on either side and the width of the river bed, which,
+walking behind our _kuruma_, it took us exactly four minutes to
+cross, afforded yet another object lesson in the severity of the
+floods that afflict the country. The rock-and rubble-choked condition
+of the rivers inclines the traveller to severe judgments on the State
+and the prefectures for not getting on faster with the work of
+afforestation; but it is only fair to note that in many places
+hillsides were pointed out to me which, bare a generation ago, are now
+covered with trees. Within a distance of twenty-five miles hill
+plantations were producing fruit to a yearly value of half a million
+yen. As for the cultivation on either side of the roadway, along which
+our _kurumaya_ were trotting us, I could not see a weed anywhere.
+
+A favourite rural recreation in Ehime, as in Shimane on the mainland,
+is bull fighting. It is not, however, fighting with bulls but between
+bulls: the sport has the redeeming feature that the animals are not
+turned loose on one another but are held all the time by their owners
+by means of the rope attached to the nose ring. The rope is gripped
+quite close to the bull's head. The result of this measure of control
+is, it was averred, that a contest resolves itself into a struggle to
+decide not which bull can fight better but which animal can push
+harder with his head. That the bulls are occasionally injured there
+can be no doubt. The contests are said to last from fifteen to twenty
+minutes and are decided by one of the combatants turning tail. There
+is a good deal of gambling on the issue. In another prefecture of
+Shikoku the rustics enjoy struggles between muzzled dogs. A taste for
+this sport is also cultivated in Akita. A certain amount of dog and
+cock fighting goes on in Tokyo.
+
+At an inn there was an evident desire to do us honour by providing a
+special dinner. One bowl contained transparent fish soup. Lying at the
+bottom was a glassy eye staring up balefully at me. (The head,
+especially the eye, of a fish is reckoned the daintiest morsel.) There
+was a relish consisting of grapes in mustard. A third dish presented
+an entire squid. I passed honourable dishes numbers two and three and
+drank the fish soup through clenched teeth and with averted gaze.
+
+I interrogated several chief constables on the absence of assaults on
+women from the lists of crimes in the rural statistics I had
+collected. Various explanations were offered to me: if there were
+cases of assault they were kept secret for the credit of the woman's
+family; no prosecution could be instituted except at the instance of
+the woman, or, if married, the woman's husband; women did not go out
+much alone; the number of cases was not in fact as large as might be
+imagined, because the people were well behaved. An official who had
+had police experience in the north of Japan declared that the south
+was more "moral and more civilised and had higher tastes." In Ehime,
+for example, there was very little illegitimacy and fewer children
+still-born than in any other prefecture. Nevertheless four offences
+against women had occurred in villages in Ehime within the preceding
+twelve months.
+
+One of the most interesting stories of rural regeneration I heard was
+told me by a blind man who had become headman of his village at the
+time of the war with Russia. His life had been indecorous and he had
+gradually lost his sight, and he took the headmanship with the wish to
+make some atonement for his careless years. This is his story:
+
+"Although I thought it important to advance the economic condition of
+the village it was still more important to promote friendship. As the
+interests of landowners and tenants was the same it was necessary to
+bring about an understanding. I began by asking landowners to
+contribute a proportion of the crops to make a fund. I was blamed by
+only fourteen out of two hundred. But the landowners who did blame me
+blamed me severely, so much so that my family[183] were uneasy. I went
+from door to door with a bag collecting rice as the priests do. My
+eccentric behaviour was reported in the papers. The anxiety of my
+household and relatives grew. My children were told at the school that
+their father was a beggar. During the first harvest in which I
+collected I gathered about 40 _koku_ (about 200 bushels). In the
+fourth year a hundred tenants came in a deputation to me. They said:
+'This gathering of rice is for our benefit. But you gather from the
+landowners only. So please let us contribute every year. Some of us
+will collect among ourselves and bring the rice to you, so giving you
+no trouble.' I was very pleased with that. But I did not express my
+pleasure. I scolded them. I said: 'Your plan is good but you think
+only of yourselves. You do not give the landowners their due. When you
+bring your rent to them you choose inferior rice. It is a bad custom.'
+I advised them to treat their landowners with justice and achieve
+independence in the relation of tenant and landowner. They were moved
+by my earnestness.
+
+"In the next year the tenants exerted themselves and the landowners
+were pleased with them. Thus the relation of landlord and tenant
+became better. The landowners in their turn became desirous of showing
+a friendly feeling toward the tenants. Some landlords came to me and
+said, 'If you wish for any money in order to be of service to the
+tenants we will lend it to you without interest.' I received some
+money. I lent money to tenants to buy manure and cattle, to attack
+insect pests, to provide protection against wind and flood and to help
+to build new dwellings nearer their work. By these means the tenants
+were encouraged and their welfare was promoted. The landlords were
+also happier, for the rice was better and the land improved. The
+landlords found that their happiness came from the tenants. There was
+good feeling between them. The landlords began to help the tenants
+directly and indirectly. Roads and bridges and many aids to
+cultivation were furnished by the landlords. A body of landlords was
+constituted for these purposes and it collected money. My idea was
+realised that the way of teaching the villages is to let landlords and
+tenants realise that their interests agree and they will become more
+friendly."
+
+The co-operative credit society which the blind headman established
+not only buys and sells for its members in the ordinary way but hires
+land for division among the humbler cultivators. One of the
+departments of the society's work is the collection of villagers'
+savings. They are gathered every Sunday by school-children. One lad, I
+found from his book, had collected on a particular Sunday 5 sen
+each--5 sen is a penny--from two houses and 10 sen each from another
+two dwellings. The next Sunday he had received 5 sen from one house,
+10 sen from two houses, 30 sen and 50 sen from others and a whole yen
+from the last house on his list. The subscriber gets no receipt but
+sees the lad enter in his book the amount handed over to him, and the
+next Sunday he sees the stamp of the bank against the sum. Some 390
+householders out of the 497 in the village hand over savings to the
+boy and girl collectors, whose energy is stimulated with 1 per cent.
+on the sums they gather. In five years the Sunday collections have
+amassed 60,000 yen. The previous year had been marked by a bad harvest
+and large sums had been drawn out of the bank, but there was still a
+sum of 14,000 yen in hand.
+
+In this village there had been issued one of the economic and moral
+diaries mentioned in an earlier chapter. The diary of this village has
+two spaces for every day--that is, the economic space and the moral
+space. The owner of this book had to do two good deeds daily, one
+economic and the other moral, and he had to enter them up. Further, he
+had to hand in the book at the end of the year to the earnest village
+agricultural and moral expert who devised the diary and carefully
+tabulates the results of twelve months' economic and moral endeavour.
+One might think that the scheme would break down at the handing in of
+the diary stage, but I was assured that there were good reasons for
+believing that a considerable proportion of the 440 persons who had
+taken out diaries would return them.
+
+There is an old custom by which Buddhist believers, in companies of a
+dozen or so, meet to eat and drink together. As a good deal is eaten
+and drunk the gatherings are costly. Our blind headman met the
+difficulty of expense in his village by getting the companies of
+believers to cultivate together in their spare time about three acres
+of land. His object was to associate religion and agriculture and so
+to dignify farming in the eyes of young men. He also wished to provide
+an object lesson in the results of good cultivation. The profits
+proved to be, as he anticipated, so considerable as to leave a balance
+after defraying the cost of the social gathering. The headman
+prevailed on the cultivators to keep accurate accounts and they made
+plain some unexpected truths: as for example, that a _tan_ of paddy
+did not need the labour of a man for more than twenty-three days of
+ten hours, and that the net income from such an area was a little more
+than 16 yen, and that thus the return for a day's labour was 73 sen.
+It was demonstrated, therefore, that labour was recompensed very well,
+and that instead of farming being "the most unprofitable of
+industries"--for in Japan as in the West there are sinners against the
+light who say this--it was reasonably profitable.
+
+But if rice called for only twenty-three days' labour per
+_tan_--nearly all the farmers' land was paddy--and the whole holding
+numbered only a few _tan_, it was also plain that there were many days
+in the year when the farmer was not fully employed. From this it was
+easy to proceed to the conviction that the available time should be
+utilised either in secondary employments, or in, say, draining, which
+would reduce the quantity of manure needed on the land. So the farmers
+began to think about drainage and the means of economising labour.
+They began to realise how time was wasted owing to most farmers
+working not only scattered, but irregularly shaped pieces of land. So
+the rice lands were adjusted, and everybody was found to have a trifle
+more land than he held before, and the fields were better watered and
+more easily cultivated. Only from sixteen to seventeen days' labour
+instead of twenty-three were now needed per _tan_[184] and the crops
+were increased. There is now no exodus from this progressive village.
+
+Concerning his blindness the headman said that it was more profitable
+for him to hear than to see, for by sight "energy might be diverted."
+He had recited in every prefecture his personal experience of rural
+reform. He asserted that while conditions varied in every prefecture,
+there was, generally speaking, labour on the land for no more than 200
+days in the year. He deplored the disappearance of some home
+employments. He did not approve of the condition of things in the
+north where women worked as much in the fields as their husbands and
+brothers. Women were "so backward and conservative." The biggest
+obstacles to agricultural progress were old women. To introduce a
+secondary industry was to take women from the fields.
+
+I spoke with an agricultural expert, one of whose dicta was that
+"students at normal schools who come from town families are not so
+clever as students from farmers' families." He told me that 10,000
+young men in his county had sworn "to act in the way most fitting to
+youths of a military state [sic], to buy and use national products as
+far as possible and so to promote national industry."
+
+What was wrong with some farming, according to an official of a county
+agricultural association whom I met later, was that the farmers
+cultivated too intensively. They used too much "artificial." A
+prefectural official, speaking of the possibility of extending the
+cultivated area in Japan, said that in Ehime there were 6,000 _chō_
+which might be made into paddies if money were available. As to
+afforestation, 100,000 yen a year, exclusive of salaries, was spent in
+the prefecture. As a final piece of statistics he mentioned that
+whereas ten years before pears were grown only in a certain island of
+the prefecture, the production of a single county was now valued at
+half a million yen yearly.
+
+I spent a night at a hot spring. It is said that the volume of water
+is decreasing. What a situation for a town which lives on a hot spring
+if the hot-water supply should suddenly stop! I heard of another
+hot-spring resort at which the water is gradually cooling: it is
+warmed up by secret piping.
+
+I have not troubled my readers with many stories of the jostling of
+past and present, but I noticed in an electric street car at Matsuyama
+a peasant trying to light his pipe with flint and tinder. As he did
+not succeed a fellow-passenger offered him a match. He was so inexpert
+with it that he still failed to get a light and he had to be handed a
+cigarette stump.
+
+In riding down to the port in the street car I borrowed for a few
+moments a schoolboy's English reader. It seemed rather mawkish. A book
+of Japanese history which I was also allowed to look at was full of
+reproductions of autographs of distinguished men. "They make the
+impression very strong," I was told.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[182] See Appendix XXXVIII.
+
+[183] That is, not only his household but his relatives.
+
+[184] Adding to the 17 days' labour for the rice crop, 13 days' labour
+for the succeeding barley crop, the total was 30 days' labour per
+_tan_ against the general Japan average of 39 days per _tan_.
+
+
+
+
+THE SOUTH-WEST OF JAPAN
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+UP-COUNTRY ORATORY
+
+(YAMAGUCHI)
+
+I have confidence, which began with hope and strengthens with
+experience, that humanity is gaining in the stores of mind.--MEREDITH
+
+
+The main street of an Inland Sea island we visited was 4 ft. wide.
+Because it was the eve of a festival the old folk were at home
+"observing their taboo." The islander who had been the first among the
+inhabitants to visit a foreign country was only fifty. The local
+policeman made us a gift of pears when we left.
+
+At another primitive island querns were in use and "ordinary families"
+were "only beginning to indulge in tombstones." In contrast with this,
+the constable told us that a small condensed-milk factory had been
+started. (This constable was a fine, dignified-looking fellow, but so
+poor that his toes were showing through his blue cloth _tabi_.) The
+condensed-milk factory must have been responsible for some surprises
+to the cows when they were first milked in its interests. I heard a
+tale of the first milking of an elderly cow. She had ploughed paddies,
+carried hay and other things and had drawn a cart. But it took five
+men and a woman to persuade her that to be milked into a clay pot was
+a reasonable thing.
+
+The third island we explored lies in such a situation in the Inland
+Sea that sailing ships used to be glad to shelter under it while
+waiting for a favourable wind. Someone had the evil thought of
+providing it with prostitutes, and, until steam began to take the
+place of sails, the number of these women established in the island
+was large. Even now, although the whole population numbers only a
+hundred families, there are thirty women of bad character. These poor
+creatures were conspicuous because of their bright clothing and
+dewomanised look. A scrutiny of the islanders old and young yielded
+the impression that the whole place was suffering from its peculiar
+traffic. There were two houses, one for registering the women and the
+other for investigating their state of health, and the purpose of the
+buildings was bluntly proclaimed on the nameboards at their doors.
+
+When we got out to sea again the newest Japanese battleship doing her
+trials was pointed out to me, but I was more interested in a large
+fishing boat running before the wind. A sturdy woman was at the helm
+and her naked young family was sprawling about the craft.
+
+Someone spoke of villagers of the mainland "failing to realise that
+they now possessed the privilege of self-government." I was reminded
+of the pleasant way of the headman of a village assembly in the
+Loochoos, Japan's oldest outlying possession. He assembles or used to
+assemble his colleagues in his courtyard and appear there with a draft
+of proposed legislation. They bowed and departed and the Bill had
+become an Act.
+
+Although we were already within the territorial waters of Hiroshima
+prefecture, we determined not to make the mainland at once but to stay
+the night at the famous island which is called both Miyajima (shrine
+island) and Itsukushima (taboo island), and is considered to be one of
+the three most noteworthy sights in Japan. Photographs and drawings of
+the shrine with its red colonnades on piles by the shore and its big
+red _torii_ standing in the sea are as familiar as representations of
+Fuji. It used to be the custom to prevent as far as possible births
+and deaths occurring on the island. Even now, funerals, dogs and
+kuruma are prohibited. The iron lanterns of the shrine and galleries
+and a hundred more in the pine tree-studded approaches are undoubtedly
+"a most magnificent spectacle at full tide on a moonless night"; but
+what of the subservience to the profitable foreign tourist seen in
+this shrine notice?--
+
+_Zori_ (straw sandals), _geta_ (wooden pattens) and all footgear
+_except shoes and boots_ are forbidden.
+
+One is attracted by the idea of listening to music and watching dances
+which came from afar in the seventh or eighth centuries, but the
+business-like tariff,
+
+  Ordinary music, 12 sen to 5 yen,
+  Special music and dance, 10 yen and upwards,
+  Lighting all lanterns, 9 yen,
+
+is calculated to take one out of the atmosphere of Hearn's dreams. The
+deities of the shrine get along as best they can with the raucous
+sirens of the tourist steamers, the din of the motor boats and the
+boom of the big guns which are hidden at the back of the island and
+make of Miyajima and its vicinity "a strategic zone" in which
+photography, sketching or the too assiduous use of a notebook is
+forbidden. Alas, I had myself arrived in a steamer which blew its
+siren loudly, and in the morning I crossed from the holy isle to the
+mainland in a motor launch.
+
+The name of Yamaguchi prefecture, which is at the extreme end of the
+mainland and has the sea to the south, the east and the north, is not
+so familiar as the name of its port, Shimoneseki. It was mentioned to
+me that the farmers of Yamaguchi worked a smaller number of days than
+in Ehime, possibly only a hundred in the year. The comment of my
+companion, who had visited a great deal of rural Japan, was that 150
+full days' work was the average for the whole country.[185]
+
+I was told that here as elsewhere there was an unsound tendency to
+turn sericulture from a secondary into a primary industry. "Experts
+are not always expert," confessed an official. "Our farmers have had
+bitter experience. Experts come who have learnt only from books or in
+other districts, so they give unsuitable counsel. Then they leave the
+prefecture for other posts before the results of their unwisdom are
+apparent."
+
+The same official told me of a "little famine" in one county which had
+imprudently concentrated its attention on the production of grape
+fruit to the annual value of about a million yen. When a storm came
+one spring there was almost a total loss. "The river and the sea were
+covered with fruit, fishing was interfered with, and the county town
+complained of the smell of the rotting fruit." It seems that many of
+the suffering orange growers were samurai who found fruit farming a
+more gentlemanly pursuit than the management of paddies. Like rural
+amateurs everywhere, "some of them would do better if they knew more
+about the working of the land."
+
+Rice was being assailed by a pest which survived in the straw stack
+and had done damage in the prefecture to the amount of 30,000 yen.
+
+In this prefecture and two others during our tour my companion
+delivered addresses to farmers under the auspices of the National
+Agricultural Association. The burden of his talk was their duty as
+agriculturists in the new conditions which were opening for the
+nation. His three audiences numbered about 700, 1,000 and 1,500. They
+were composed largely of picked men. At the first gathering the
+audience squatted; at the next chairs were provided; at the third
+there were school forms with backs. What I particularly noticed was
+the easy-going way in which the meetings were conducted. No gathering
+began exactly at the time announced, although one of the audiences had
+been encouraged to be in time by the promise of a gift of mottoes to
+the first hundred arrivals. At each meeting the Governor of the
+prefecture was the first speaker. At one meeting the Governor arrived
+about 8.30 a.m., made his speech and departed. When my friend had been
+introduced to various people in the anteroom, had drunk tea and had
+smoked and chatted a little, he was taken to the platform half an hour
+or three quarters after the conclusion of the Governor's speech.
+Nothing had happened at the meeting in the interval. The idea was that
+the wait would help the audience's digestion of the speech it had had
+and the speech it was going to have. There was no formal introduction
+of the orator. He just mounted the platform and spoke for two hours.
+
+[Illustration: SCHOOL SHRINE FOR EMPEROR'S PORTRAIT.]
+
+[Illustration:cTHE AUTHOR ADDRESSING, THROUGH AN INTERPRETER, LAFCADIO
+HEARN DEATH-DAY MEETING AT MATSUE.]
+
+At the second meeting the Governor awaited our arrival but "went
+on" alone. The star speaker meanwhile refreshed himself in the
+anteroom with tea, tobacco and conversation as before. In a few
+minutes the Governor, having done his turn, rejoined us, and my friend
+proceeded to the meeting to deliver his speech, the Governor taking
+his departure.
+
+[Illustration: A PEASANT PROPRIETOR'S HOUSE.]
+
+[Illustration: GRAVESTONES REASSEMBLED AFTER PADDY ADJUSTMENT.]
+
+At the third meeting the Governor and the speaker of the day did enter
+the hall together, but before the Governor had finished his
+introductory harangue my companion took himself off to the anteroom to
+refresh himself with a cigar and a chat. When the Governor concluded
+and returned to the anteroom there was conversation for a few minutes,
+and then my friend and his Excellency went into the meeting together.
+This time the Governor stayed to the end.
+
+In his three speeches my friend said many moving things and his
+audiences were appreciative. But no one presumed to interrupt with
+applause. At the end, however, there was a hearty round of
+hand-clapping, now a general custom at public gatherings. On the
+conclusion of each of his addresses the orator stepped down from the
+platform and made off to the hall, for no one dreamt of asking
+questions. When he was gone an official expressed the thanks of the
+audience and there was another round of applause. Then everybody
+connected with the arrangement of the meeting gathered in the anteroom
+and one after the other made appreciative speeches and bows. I
+marvelled at the orator's toughness. Before he went on the platform he
+had been pestered with unending introductions and beset by
+conversation. But I do not know that my friend felt any strain. Nor
+did the fashion in which the speakers wandered on and off the
+platform, and thus, according to our notions, did their utmost to damp
+the enthusiasm of the meetings, seem to have any such effect. Once in
+an oculist's consulting clinic in Tokyo I was struck by the fact that
+when water was squirted into the eyes of a succession of patients of
+both sexes and various ages, they did not wince as Western people
+would have done.
+
+I was told that school fees go up a little when the price of rice is
+high; also of the "negatively good" effects of young men's
+associations. During the period of our tour efforts were being made to
+systematise these organisations. The Department of Agriculture wanted
+a farmer at the head of each society, the War Office an ex-soldier.
+There can be no doubt that the militarists have been doing their best
+to give the societies the mental attitude of the army.
+
+In the country we were entering, the horse had taken the place of the
+ox as the beast of burden. Two men of some authority in the prefecture
+agreed that it was difficult to think of tracts in the south-west that
+would be suitable for cattle grazing. There was certainly no "square
+_ri_ where the price of land was low enough to keep sheep." As to
+cattle breeding and forestry, one of them must give way. It was
+necessary to keep immense areas under evergreen wood for the defence
+of the country against floods. With regard to the areas available for
+afforestation, for cattle keeping and for cultivation respectively, it
+was necessary to be on one's guard against "experts" who were disposed
+to claim all available land for their specialties.
+
+When we took to an automobile for the first stage of our long journey
+through Yamaguchi and Shimane--the railway came no farther than the
+city of Yamaguchi--I noticed that just as the bridges are often
+without parapets, the roads winding round the cliffs were, as in
+Fukushima, unprotected by wall or rail. This was due, no doubt, to
+considerations of economy, to a widely diffused sense of
+responsibility which makes people look after their own safety, and
+also, in some degree, to stout Japanese nerves. That our driver's
+nerves were sound enough was shown by the speed at which he drove the
+heavy car round sharp corners and down slippery descents where we
+should have dropped a few hundred feet had we gone over.
+
+At our first stopping-place I saw a photograph showing a Shinshu
+priest engaged with the girl pupils of a Buddhist school in tree
+planting. Our talk here was about the low incomes on which people
+contrive to live. A little more than a quarter of a century ago the
+family of a friend of mine, now of high rank, was living in a county
+town on 5 yen a month! There were two adults and three children. Rent
+was 1.20 yen and rice came to 1.80 yen. Even to-day an ex-Minister may
+have only 1,500 yen a year. Many ex-Governors are living quietly in
+villages. We went to call upon one of them who was getting great
+satisfaction out of his few _tan_. Among other things he told us was
+that there were five doctors and one midwife in the community. These
+doctors do not possess a Tokyo qualification. They have qualified by
+being taught by their fathers or by some other practitioner, and they
+are entitled to practise in their own village and in, perhaps, a
+neighbouring one.
+
+It was thoughtless of me, after inquiring about the doctors, to ask
+about the gravedigger. I was told that when there was no member of a
+"special tribe" available it was the duty of neighbours to dig graves.
+A community's displeasure was marked by neighbours refraining from
+helping to dig an unpopular person's grave. (One might have expected
+to hear that such a grave would be dug with alacrity.) Families which
+had run counter to public opinion had had to "apologise" before they
+could get neighbourly help at the burial of their dead.
+
+Only one family in the village, I learnt from the headman, was being
+helped from public funds. This family consisted of an old man and his
+daughter, who, owing to the attendance her father required, could not
+go out to work. The village provided a small house and three pints of
+rice daily. The headman in his private capacity gave the girl, with
+the assistance of some friends, straw rope-making to do and paid a
+somewhat higher price than is usual.
+
+Of last year's births in the village 10 per cent. had been legally and
+5 per cent. actually illegitimate. Four or five births had occurred a
+few months after marriage.
+
+We ate our lunch in the headman's room in the village office. Hanging
+from the ceiling was a sealed envelope to be opened on receipt of a
+telegram. Some member of the village staff always slept in that room.
+The envelope contained instructions to be acted upon if mobilisation
+took place.
+
+When we had gone on some distance I stopped to watch a farmer's wife
+and daughter threshing in a barn by pulling the rice through a row of
+steel teeth, the simple form of threshing implement which is seen in
+slightly different patterns all over Japan. (It is the successor of a
+contrivance of bamboo stakes.) The women told me that one person could
+thresh fourteen bushels a day. The implement cost 2-1/2 yen from
+travelling vendors but only 1-1/2 yen from the co-operative society.
+While we talked the farmer appeared. I apologised to him for
+unwittingly stepping on the threshold of the barn--that is, the
+grooved timber in which the sliding doors run. It is considered to be
+an insult to the head of the house to tread on the threshold as in
+some way "standing on the householder's head."
+
+This man had a bamboo plantation, and he told me, in reply to a
+question, that the bamboo would shoot up at the rate of more than a
+foot in twenty-four hours. (During the month in which this is dictated
+I have measured the growth of a shoot of a Dorothy Perkins climber and
+find that it averages about quarter of an inch in twenty-four hours.)
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[185] See Appendix XII.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+MEN, DOGS AND SWEET POTATOES
+
+(SHIMANE)
+
+Nothing but omniscience could suffice to answer all the questions
+implicitly raised.--J.G. FRAZER
+
+
+When we descended from the hills we were in Shimane, a long, narrow,
+coastwise prefecture through which one travels over a succession of
+heights to the capital, Matsue, situated at the far end. Two-thirds of
+the journey must be made on foot and by _kuruma_.[186] Some talk by
+the way was about the farmers going five or six miles daily to the
+hills to cut grass for their "cattle," the average number of cattle
+per farmer being 1.3 hereabouts. It seemed strange to see buckwheat at
+the flowering stage reached by the crops seen in Fukushima several
+months before. The explanation was that buckwheat is sown both in
+spring and autumn.
+
+In the old days notable samurai, fugitives from Tokyo, had kept
+themselves secluded in the rooms we occupied at Yamaguchi. In Shimane
+we had small plain low-ceiled rooms in which daimyos had been
+accommodated. Not here alone had I evidences of the simplicity of the
+life of Old Japan.
+
+I was wakened in the morning by the voice of a woman earnestly
+praying. She stood in the yard of the house opposite and faced first
+in one direction and then in another. A friend of mine once stayed
+overnight at an inn on the river at Kyoto. In the morning he saw
+several men and a considerable number of women praying by the
+waterside. They were the keepers and inmates of houses of ill-fame.
+The old Shinto idea was that prayers might be made anywhere at other
+times than festivals, for the god was at the shrine at festivals only.
+Nowadays some old men go to the shrine every morning, just as many old
+women are seen at the Buddhist temples daily. Half the visitors to a
+Shinto shrine, an educated man assured me, may pray, but in the case
+of the other half the "worship" is "no more than a motion of respect."
+My friend told me that when he prayed at a shrine his prayer was for
+his children's or his parents' health.
+
+At a county town I found a library of 4,000 volumes, largely an
+inheritance from the feudal regime. Wherever I went I could not but
+note the cluster of readers at the open fronts of bookshops.[187]
+
+On our second day's journey in Shimane I had a _kuruma_ with wooden
+wheels, and in the hills the day after we passed a man kneeling in a
+_kago_, the old-fashioned litter. When we took to a _basha_ we
+discovered that, owing to the roughness of the road, we had a driver
+for each of our two horses. We had also an agile lad who hung on first
+to one part and then another of the vehicle and seemed to be essential
+in some way to its successful management. The head of the hatless
+chief driver was shaved absolutely smooth.
+
+It was a rare thing for a foreigner to pass this way. My companion
+frequently told me that he had difficulty in understanding what people
+said.
+
+We saw an extinct volcano called "Green Field Mountain." There was not
+a tree on it and it was said never to have possessed any. The whole
+surface was closely cut, the patches cut at different periods showing
+up in rectangular strips of varying shades. Wherever the hills were
+treeless and too steep for cultivation they were carefully cut for
+fodder. In cultivable places houses were standing on the minimum of
+ground. More than once we had a view of a characteristic piece of
+scenery, a dashing stream seen through a clump of bamboo.
+
+When our basha stopped for the feeding of the horses, they had a tub
+of mixture composed of boiled naked barley, rice chaff, chopped straw
+and chopped green stuff. I noticed near the inn a doll in a tree. It
+had been put there by children who believe that they can secure by so
+doing a fine day for an outing. When we started again we met with a
+company of strolling players: a man, his wife and two girls, all with
+clever faces. We also saw several peasant anglers fishing or going
+home with their catch. A licence available from July to December cost
+50 sen.
+
+At a shop I made a note of its signs, the usual strips of white wood
+about 8 ins. by 3, nailed up perpendicularly, with the inscriptions
+written in black. One sign was the announcement of the name and
+address of the householder, which must be shown on every Japanese
+house. A second stated that the place was licensed as a shop, a third
+that the householder's wife was licensed to keep an inn, a fourth that
+the householder was a cocoon merchant, a fifth that he was a member of
+the co-operative credit society, a sixth that he belonged to the Red
+Cross Society, a seventh that his wife was a member of the Patriotic
+Women's Society,[188] the eighth, ninth and tenth that the shopkeeper
+was an adherent of a certain Shinto shrine, a member of a Shinto
+organisation and had visited three shrines and made donations to them.
+An eleventh board proclaimed that he was of the Zen sect of Buddhism.
+Finally, there was a box in which was stored the charms from various
+shrines.
+
+We passed a company of villagers working on the road for the local
+authority. The labourers were chiefly old people and they were taking
+their task very easily. Farther along the road men and women were
+working singly. It seemed that the labourers belonged to families
+which, instead of paying rates, did a bit of roadmending. The work was
+done when they had time to spare.
+
+For some time we had been in a part of the country in which the ridges
+of the houses were of tiles. At an earlier stage of our journey they
+had been either of straw or of earth with flowers or shrubs growing in
+it. The shiny, red-brown tiles give place elsewhere to a
+slate-coloured variety. The surface of all of these tiles is so
+smooth that they are unlikely to change their hard tint for years.
+Meanwhile they give the villages a look of newness. Their use is
+spreading rapidly. Shiny though the tiles may be, one cannot but
+admire the neat way in which they interlock. One day when I wondered
+about the cost involved in recovering roofs with these tiles, a woman
+worker who overheard me promptly said that, reckoning tiles and
+labour, the cost was 60 or 70 sen per 22 tiles. In the old days tiled
+porticoes were forbidden to the commonalty. They were allowed only to
+daimyos who also used exclusively the arm rests which every visitor to
+an inn may now command. Besides arm rests I have frequently had
+kneeling cushions of the white brocade formerly used only for the
+_zabuton_ of Buddhist priests.
+
+In the county through which we were passing the fine water grass,
+called _i_, used for mat making, is grown on an area of about 78
+_chō_. It is sown in seed beds like rice and is transplanted into
+inferior paddies in September. (The grass is better grown in Hiroshima
+and Okayama.)
+
+I saw a beautiful tree in red blossom. The name given to it is "monkey
+slip," because of the smoothness of its skin, which recalled the name
+of that very different ornament of suburban gardens, "monkey puzzle."
+
+During this journey we recovered something of the conditions of
+old-time travel. There were chats by the way and conferences at the
+inn in the evening and in the morning concerning distances, the kind
+of vehicles available, the character of their drivers, the charges,
+the condition of the road, the probable weather and the places at
+which satisfactory accommodation might be had. What was different from
+the old days was that at every stopping-place but one we had electric
+light. Part of our journey was done in a small motor bus lighted by
+electricity. Like the automobile we had hired a day or two before, it
+was driven--by two young men in blue cotton tights--at too high a
+speed considering the narrowness and curliness of the roads by which
+we crossed the passes. The roads are kept in reasonably good
+condition, but they were made for hand cart and _kuruma_ traffic.
+
+We passed an island on which I was told there were a dozen houses.
+When a death occurs a beacon fire is made and a priest on the mainland
+conducts a funeral ceremony. By the custom of the island it is
+forbidden to increase the number of the houses, so presumably several
+families live together. In the mountain communities of the mainland,
+where the number of houses is also restricted, it is usual for only
+the eldest brother to be allowed to marry. The children of younger
+brothers are brought up in the families of their mothers.
+
+We passed at one of the fishing hamlets the wreck of a Russian cruiser
+which came ashore after the battle of Tsushima. Two boat derricks from
+the cruiser served as gate posts at the entrance of the school
+playground.
+
+A familiar sight on a country road is the itinerant medicine vendor.
+He or his employer believes in pushing business by means of an
+impressive outfit. One typical cure-all seller, who had his medicines
+in a shiny bag slung over his shoulders, wore yellow shoes, cotton
+drawers, a frock coat, a peaked cap with three gold stripes, and a
+mysterious badge. On his hands he had white cotton gloves and as he
+walked he played a concertina. A common practice is to leave with
+housewives a bag of medicines without charge. Next year another call
+is made, when the pills and what not which have been used are paid for
+and a new bag is exchanged for the old one.
+
+The use of dogs to help to draw _kuruma_ is forbidden in some
+prefectures, but in three stages of our journey in Shimane we had the
+aid of robust dogs. During this period, however, I saw, attached to
+_kuruma_ we passed, three dogs which did not seem up to their work.
+Dogs suffer when used for draught purposes because their chests are
+not adapted for pulling and because the pads of their feet get tender.
+The animals we had were treated well. Each _kuruma_ had a cord, with a
+hook at the end, attached to it; and this hook was slipped into a ring
+on the dog's harness. The dogs were released when we went downhill and
+usually on the level. Several times during each run, when we came to a
+stream or a pond or even a ditch, the dogs were released for a bathe.
+They invariably leapt into the water, drank moderately, and then, if
+the water was too shallow for swimming, sat down in it and then lay
+down. Sometimes a dog temporarily at liberty would find on his own
+account a small water hole, and it was comical to see him taking a
+sitz bath in it. When the sun was hot a dog would sometimes be
+retained on his cord when not pulling in order that he might trot
+along in the shade below the _kuruma_. The dog of the _kuruma_
+following mine usually managed when pulling to take advantage of the
+shade thrown by my vehicle. A _kurumaya_ told me that he had given 8
+yen for his dog. Dogs were sometimes sold for from 10 to 15 yen. The
+difficulty was to get a dog that had good feet and would pull. The
+dogs I saw were all mongrels with sometimes a retriever, bloodhound or
+Great Dane strain.
+
+I made enquiries about another county town library. There were 18,000
+volumes of which 300 consisted of European books and 600 of bound
+magazines. The annual expenditure on books, and I presume magazines,
+was 600 yen.
+
+We passed a "special tribe" hamlet. Here the Eta were devoting
+themselves to tanning and bamboo work. I was told of other "peculiar
+people" called Hachia, also of a hawker-beggar class which sells small
+things of brass or bamboo or travels with performing monkeys.
+
+Water from hot springs is piped long distances in water pipes made of
+bamboo trunks, the ends of which are pushed into one another. A turn
+is secured by running two pipes at the angle required into a block of
+wood which has been bored to fit.
+
+When we got down to the sand dunes there were windbreaks, 10 or 15 ft.
+high, made of closely planted pines cut flat at the top. Elsewhere I
+saw such windbreaks 30 ft. high. On the telegraph wires there were big
+spiders' webs about 4 ft. in diameter.
+
+As we sped through a village my attention was attracted by a funeral
+feast. The pushed-back _shoji_ showed about a dozen men sitting in a
+circle eating and drinking. Women were waiting on them. At the back of
+the room, making part of the circle, was the square coffin covered by
+a white canopy.
+
+While passing a Buddhist temple I heard the sound of preaching. It
+might have been a voice from a church or chapel at home.
+
+Shortly afterwards I came on a memorial to the man who introduced the
+sweet potato into the locality 150 years before. This was the first of
+many sweet-potato memorials which I encountered in the prefecture and
+elsewhere. Sometimes there were offerings before the monuments.
+Occasionally the memorial took the form of a stone cut in the shape of
+a potato. There is a great exportation of sweet potatoes--sliced and
+dried until they are brittle--to the north of Japan where the tuber
+cannot be cultivated.[189]
+
+While we rested at the house of a friend of my companion we spoke of
+emigration. There are four or five emigration companies, and it is an
+interesting question just how much emigration is due to the initiative
+of the emigrants themselves and how much to the activity of the
+companies. The chief reason which induces emigrants to go to South
+America is that, under the contract system, they get twice as much
+money as they would obtain, say, in Formosa.[190]
+
+Our host did not remember any foreigner visiting his village since his
+boyhood, though it is on the main road. It took nearly four days for a
+Tokyo newspaper to arrive. This region is so little known that when a
+resident mentioned it in Tokyo he was sometimes asked if it was in
+Hokkaido.
+
+I was interested to see how many villages had erected monuments to
+young men who had won distinction away from home as wrestlers.
+
+I had often noticed bulls drawing carts and behaving as sedately as
+donkeys, but it was new to see a bull tethered at the roadside with
+children playing round it. Why are the Japanese bulls so friendly?
+
+In the mountainous regions we passed through I saw several paddies no
+bigger than a hearthrug. At one spot a land crab scurried across the
+road. It was red in colour and about 2-1/2 ins. long.
+
+At a village office the headman's gossip was that priests had been
+forbidden by the prefecture to interfere in elections. We looked
+through the expenses of the village agricultural association. For a
+lecture series 5 yen a month was being paid. Then there had been an
+expenditure by way of subsidising a children's campaign against
+insects preying on rice. For ten of the little clusters of eggs one
+may see on the backs of leaves 4 rin was paid, while for 10 moths the
+reward was 2 rin. The association spent a further 10 yen on helping
+young people to attend lectures at a distance. The commune in which
+those things had been done numbered 3,100 people. There had been two
+police offences during the year, but both offenders were strangers to
+the locality.
+
+In a cutting which was being made for the new railway, girl labourers
+were steering their trucks of soil down a half-mile descent and
+singing as they made the exhilarating run. The building of a railway
+through a closely cultivated and closely populated country involves
+the destruction of a large amount of fertile land and the rebuilding
+of many houses. The area of agricultural land taken during the
+preceding and present reigns, not only for railways and railway
+stations but for roads, barracks, schools and other public buildings,
+has been enormous. "The owner of land removed from cultivation may
+seem to do well by turning his property into cash," a man said to me.
+"He may also profit to some extent while the railway is building by
+the jobs he is able to do for the contractor, with the assistance of
+his family and his horse or bull; but afterwards he has often to seek
+another way of earning his living than farming."
+
+We neared railhead on a market day and many folk in their best were
+walking along the roads. Of fourteen umbrellas used as parasols to
+keep off the sun that I counted one only was of the Japanese paper
+sort; all the others were black silk on steel ribs in "foreign style"
+except for a crude embroidery on the silk.
+
+When we got into the town it was as much as our _kurumaya_ could do to
+move through the dense crowd of rustics in front of booths and shops.
+Once more I was impressed by the imperturbability and natural
+courtesy of the people. At the station quite a number of farmers and
+their families had assembled, not to travel by the train but to see it
+start.
+
+During the short journey by train I noticed lagoons in which fish were
+artificially fed. At an agricultural experiment station in the place
+at which we alighted there were two specimen windmills set up to show
+farmers who were fortunate enough to have ammonia water on their land
+the cheapest means of raising it for their paddies. The tendency here
+as elsewhere was to apply too much of the ammonia water. All rubbish
+on this extensive experiment station was carefully burnt under cover
+in order to demonstrate the importance not only of getting all the
+potash possible but of preserving it when obtained.
+
+Farmers who are without secondary industries are short of cash except
+at the times when barley, rice and cocoons are sold, and in certain
+places they seem to have taken to saving money on salt. An old man
+told us with tears in his eyes how he had protested to his neighbours
+against the tendency to do without salt. An excuse for attempting to
+save on salt, besides the economical one, was the size of the salt
+cubes. Neighbours clubbed together to buy a cube, and thus a family,
+when it had finished its share, had to wait until the neighbours had
+disposed of theirs and market day came round.[191]
+
+I saw a monument erected to the memory of "a good farmer" who had
+planted a wood and developed irrigation.
+
+We made a stay at the spot where, on a forest-clad hill overlooking
+the sea, there stands in utter simplicity the great shrine of Izumo.
+The customary collection of shops and hotels clustering at the town
+end of the avenue of _torii_ cannot impair the impression which is
+made on the alien beholder by this shrine in the purest style of
+Shinto architecture. In the month in which we arrived at Izumo the
+deities are believed to gather there. Before the shrine the Japanese
+visitor makes his obeisance and his offering at the precise spot--four
+places are marked--to which his rank permits him to advance. (This
+inscription may be read: "Common people at the doorway.") The
+estimate which an official gave me of the number of visitors last
+year, 40,000, bore no relation to the "quarter of a million" of the
+guide book. But it had been a bad year for farmers. Forty-seven
+geisha, who had reported the previous year that they had received
+35,000 yen--there is no limit to what is tabulated in Japan--now
+reported that they had gained only half that sum in twelve months,
+"the price of cocoons being so low that even well-to-do farmers could
+not come." I noticed that there was a clock let into one of the
+granite votive pillars of the avenue along which one walks from the
+town to the shrine. As I glanced at the clock it happened that the
+sound of children's voices reached me from a primary school. I
+wondered what time and modern education, which have brought such
+changes in Japan, might make of it all.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[186] The railway has now been extended in the direction of Yamaguchi.
+
+[187] See Appendix LI.
+
+[188] Protests have been made against the way in which the country
+people are dunned for subscriptions to these semi-official
+organisations. A high agricultural authority has stated that in Nagano
+the farmers' taxes and subscriptions to the Red Cross and Patriotic
+Women Societies are from 65 to 70 per cent. of their expenditure as
+against 30 to 35 per cent. spent on outlay other than food and
+clothing.
+
+[189] _Satsuma-imo_ is sweet potato. Our potato is called _jaga-imo_
+or _bareisho_. _Imo_ is the general name.
+
+[190] See Appendix LII.
+
+[191] The Salt Monopoly profits are estimated at 314,204 yen for
+1920-21.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+FRIENDS OF LAFCADIO HEARN
+
+(SHIMANE, TOTTORI AND HYOGO)
+
+Those who suffer learn, those who love know.--MRS. HAVELOCK ELLIS
+
+
+At Matsue, with which the name of Lafcadio Hearn will always be
+associated, I chanced to arrive on the anniversary of his death. His
+local admirers were holding a memorial meeting. As a foreigner I was
+honoured with a request to attend. First, however, I had the chance of
+visiting Hearn's house. Matsue was the first place at which Hearn
+lived. He always remembered it and at last came back there to marry.
+Except that a pond has been filled up--no doubt to reduce the number
+of mosquitoes--the garden of his house is little changed.
+
+The most interesting feature of the meeting was old pupils' grateful
+recollections of Hearn, the middle-school teacher. The gathering was
+held in a room belonging to the town library in the prefectural
+grounds, but neither the Governor nor the mayor was present. A
+sympathetic speech was made by a chance visitor to the town, the
+secretary-general to the House of Peers. He recalled the antagonism
+which the young men at Tokyo University, himself among them, felt
+towards the odd figure of Hearn--he had a terribly strained eye and
+wore a monocle--when he became a professor, and how very soon he
+gained the confidence and regard of the class.
+
+I had often wondered that there was no Japanese memorial to Hearn, and
+when I rose to speak I said so. I added that it was rare to meet a
+Japanese who had any understanding of how much Hearn had done in
+forming the conception of Japan possessed by thousands of Europeans
+and Americans. The fault in so many books about Japan, I went on, was
+not that their "facts" were wrong. What was wrong was their authors'
+attitude of mind. I had heard Japanese say that Hearn was "too
+poetical" and that some of his inferences were "inaccurate." That was
+as might be. What mattered was that the mental attitude of Hearn was
+so largely right. He did not approach Japan as a mere "fact" collector
+or as a superior person. What he brought to the country was the
+humble, studious, imaginative, sympathetic attitude; and it was only
+by men and women of his rare type that peoples were interpreted one to
+the other.
+
+In that free-and-easy way in which meetings are conducted in Japan it
+was permissible for us to leave after another speech had been made.
+The proceedings were interrupted while the promoters of the gathering
+showed us a collection of books and memorials of Hearn, arranged under
+a large portrait, and accompanied us to the door of the hall. I do not
+recall during the time I was in Japan any other public gathering in
+honour of Hearn, and I met several prominent men who had either never
+heard his name or knew nothing of the far-reaching influence of his
+books. But some months after this Matsue meeting there was included
+among the Coronation honours a posthumous distinction for
+Hearn--"fourth rank of the junior grade."[192]
+
+During this journey I attended a dinner of officials and leading
+agriculturists and had the odd sensation of making a short
+after-dinner speech on my knees. At such a dinner the guests kneel on
+cushions ranged round the four walls of the room, and each man has a
+low lacquer table to himself, and a geisha to wait on him. When the
+geisha is not bringing in new dishes or replenishing the _saké_
+bottle, she kneels before the table and chatters entertainingly. The
+governors of the feast visit the guests of honour and drink with them.
+In the same way a guest drinks with his neighbour and with his
+attendant geisha. I have a vivid memory of a grave and elderly
+dignitary who at the merry stage of such a function capered the whole
+length of the room with his kneeling-cushion balanced on the top of
+his head. There is a growing temperance movement in Japan but a
+teetotaller is still something of an oddity. My abstinence from _saké_
+was frequently supposed to be the result of a vow.
+
+Although the average geisha may be inane in her patter and have little
+more than conventional grace and charm, I have been waited on by girls
+who added real mental celerity, wit and a power of skilful mimicry to
+that elusive and seductive quality that accounts for the impregnable
+position of their class. At one dinner impersonations in both the
+comic and the tragic vein were given by a girl of unmistakable genius.
+Frequently a plain, elderly geisha will display unsuspected mimetic
+ability. Alas, behind the merry laugh and sprightliness of the girls
+who adorn a feast lurks a skeleton. One is haunted by thoughts of the
+future of a large proportion of these butterflies. No doubt most
+foreigners generalise too freely in identifying the professions of
+geisha and _joro_. In the present organisation of society some geisha
+play a legitimate rôle. They gain in the career for which they have
+laboriously trained an outlet for the expression of artistic and
+social gifts which would have been denied them in domestic life. At
+the same time the degrading character of the life led by many geisha
+cannot be doubted. Apart from every other consideration the temptation
+to drink is great. The opening of new avenues to feminine ability, the
+enlarged opportunities of education and self-respect and the
+increasing opening for women on the stage--from which women have been
+excluded hitherto--must have their effect in turning the minds of
+girls of wit and originality to other means of earning a living than
+the morally and physically hazardous profession of the geisha.
+
+When we left Matsue by steamer on our way to Tottori prefecture I saw
+middle-school eights at practice. An agriculturist told me of the
+custom of giving holidays to oxen and horses. The villagers carefully
+brush their animals, decorate them and lead them to pastures where,
+tethered to rings attached to a long rope, "they may graze together
+pleasantly." One of the islands we visited bore the name of the giant
+radish, Daikon, which is itself a corruption of the word for octopus.
+The island devoted itself mainly to the growing of peonies and
+ginseng. The ginseng is largely exported to China and Korea, but there
+is a certain consumption in Japan. Ginseng is sometimes chewed, but is
+generally soaked, the liquid being drunk. Ginseng is popularly
+supposed to be an invigorant, and Japanese doctors in Korea have
+lately declared that it has some value. The root is costly, hence the
+proverb about eating ginseng and hanging oneself, i.e. getting into
+debt.
+
+In walking across the island I passed a forlorn little shrine. It was
+merely a rough shed with a wide shelf at the back, on which stood a
+row of worn and dusty figures, decked with the clothes of children
+whose recovery was supposed to have been due to their influence. It
+was raining and the shelter was full of children playing in the
+company of an old crone with a baby on her back. Further on in the
+village I came across a new public bath. The price of admission was
+one sen, children half price.
+
+A small port was pointed out to me as being open to foreign trade.
+Everybody is not aware that in Japan there is a restriction upon
+foreign shipping except at sixty specified places.[193] The reason
+given for the restriction is the unprofitableness of custom houses at
+small places. One day, perhaps, the world will wake up to the
+inconvenience and financial burden imposed by the custom-house system
+of raising revenue.
+
+We stayed the night at a little place at the eastern extremity of the
+Shimane promontory where there is a shrine and no cultivation of any
+sort is allowed "for fear of defilement." Waste products are taken
+away by boat. I marked a contrast between theoretical and practical
+holiness. Our inn overlooked a special landing-place where, because a
+"sacred boat" from the shrine is launched there, a notice had been put
+up forbidding the throwing of rubbish into the sea. A few minutes
+after the board had been pointed out to me I saw an old man cast a
+considerable mass of rubbish into the water not six feet away from it.
+When we visited the shrine three pilgrims were at their devotions. The
+next morning when our steamer left and the chief priest of the shrine
+was bidding us adieu my attention was attracted by loud conversation
+in the second storey of an inn, the _shoji_ of which were open. Our
+pilgrims, two of whom were bald, had spent the night at an inn of bad
+character and were now in the company of prostitutes in the sight of
+all men. One pilgrim had a girl on his knee, another was himself on a
+girl's knee and a third had his arm round a girl's neck. In this
+"sacred" place of 2,000 inhabitants there were forty "double license"
+girls, five being natives. A few years ago all the girls were natives.
+A "double license" girl means one who is licensed both as a geisha and
+a prostitute. The plan of issuing "double licenses" is adopted at
+Kyoto and elsewhere. As to the pilgrims to whom I have referred,
+someone quoted to me the saying, "It is only half a pilgrimage going
+to the shrine without seeing the girls."
+
+Returning to the custom of launching a sacred boat it is not without
+significance that many Japanese deities have some connection with the
+sea. Even in the case of the deities of shrines a long way from the
+sea the ceremony of "going down to the sea" is sometimes observed.
+Sand and sea water are sent for in order to be mixed with the water
+used to cleanse the car in which the figure of the deity is drawn
+through the streets.
+
+The social and financial position of tenants was illustrated by an
+incident at an inn. As the maid came from the country I asked her if
+her father were a tenant or an owner. My companion interrupted to tell
+me that the question was not judiciously framed because the girl would
+"think it a disgrace to own that her father was a tenant." The name of
+a tenant used long ago to be "water drinker." This waiting-maid was a
+good-looking and rather clever girl. I was dismayed when my friend
+told me that she had said to him quite simply that she had thoughts
+of becoming a _joro_. She thought it would be a "more interesting
+life."
+
+When we reached Tottori prefecture we found ourselves in a country
+which grows more cotton than any other. Japanese cotton (grown on
+about 400 _chō_) is unsuitable for manufacture into thread, but
+because of its elasticity is considered to be valuable for the padding
+of winter clothing and for _futon_ and _zabuton_. Their softness is
+maintained by daily sunning.
+
+At a county office I noted that the persons who were receiving relief
+were classified as follows: Illness, 26; cripples, 17; old age, 16;
+schoolboys, 12; infancy, 1.
+
+In the course of our journey a Shinto priest was pointed out to me as
+observing the priestly taboo by refusing tea and cake. I noticed,
+however, that he smoked. I was told that when he was in Tokyo he
+purified himself in the sea even in midwinter. I did not like his
+appearance. Nor for the matter of that was I impressed by the
+countenances of some Buddhist priests I encountered in the train from
+time to time. "Thinking always of money," someone said. But every now
+and again I saw fine priestly faces.
+
+I have noted down very little in regard to the crops and the
+countryside in Tottori. Things seemed very much the same as I had seen
+in Shimane. At an agricultural show in the city of Tottori the
+varieties of yam and taro were so numerous as to deceive the average
+Westerner into believing that he was seeing the roots of different
+kinds of plants. A feature of the show was a large realistic model of
+a rice field with two life-size figures.
+
+In the evening I talked with two distinguished men until a late hour.
+"We are not a metaphysical people," one of them said. "Nor were our
+forefathers as religious as some students may suppose. Those who went
+before us gave to the Buddhist shrine and even worshipped there, but
+their daily life and their religion had no close connection. We did
+not define religion closely. Religion has phases according to the
+degree of public instruction. Our religion has had more to do with
+propitiation and good fortune than with morality. If you had come here
+a century ago you would have been unable to find even then religion
+after another pattern. If it be said that a man must be religious in
+order to be good the person who says so does not look about him. I am
+not afraid to say that our people are good as a result of long
+training in good behaviour. Their good character is due to the same
+causes as the freedom from rowdiness which may be marked in our
+crowds."
+
+"What is wanted in the villages," said the other personage, "is one
+good personality in each." I said that the young men's association
+seemed to me to be often a dull thing, chiefly indeed a mechanism by
+means of which serious persons in a village got the young men to work
+overtime. "Yes," was the response, "the old men make the young fellows
+work."
+
+The first speaker said that there had been three watchwords for the
+rural districts. "There was Industrialisation and Increase of
+Production. There was Public Spirit and Public Welfare. There was The
+Shinto Shrine the Centre of the Village. We have a certain conception
+of a model village, but perhaps some hypocrisy may mingle with it.
+They say that the village with well-kept Buddhist and Shinto shrines
+is generally a good village."
+
+"In other words," I ventured, "the village where there is some
+non-material feeling."
+
+The rejoinder was: "Western religion is too high, and, I fear,
+inapplicable to our life. It may be that we are too easily contented.
+But there are nearly 60 millions of us. I do not know that we feel a
+need or have a vacant place for religion. There is certainly not much
+hope for an increase of the influence of Buddhism."
+
+As we went along in the train I was told that on a sixth of the rice
+area in Tottori there had been a loss of 70 per cent. by wind. When a
+man's harvest loss exceeds this percentage he is not liable for rates
+and taxes. A passenger told me about "nursery pasture." This is a
+patch of grass in the hills to which a farmer sends his ox to be
+pastured in common with the oxen of other farmers under the care of a
+single herdsman. It is from cattle keeping on this modest scale that
+the present beef requirements of the country are largely met.[194]
+
+Although the opinions expressed to me by Governors of prefectures
+have been frequently recorded in these pages, I have not felt at
+liberty to identify more than one of the Excellencies who were good
+enough to express their views to me. A friend who knew many Governors
+offered me the following criticism, which I thought just: "They are
+too practical and too much absorbed in administration to be able to
+think. Often they read very little after leaving the university. They
+have seldom anything to tell you about other than ordinary things, and
+they seldom show their hearts. You cannot learn much from Governors
+who have nothing original to say or are fearful or live in their frock
+coats or do not mean to show half their minds or are practising the
+old official trick of talking round and round and always evading the
+point. One fault of Governors is that they are being continually
+transferred from prefecture to prefecture. You have no doubt yourself
+noticed how often Governors were new to their prefectures. But with
+all the faults that our Governors have, there are not a few able, good
+and kind men among them and they are not recruited from Parliament but
+must be members of the Civil Service. One of the most common words in
+our political life is _genshitsu_, 'responsibility for one's own
+words.' If Governors fear to assume the responsibility of their own
+views they are only of a part with a great deal of the official
+world."
+
+We turned away from the northern sea coast and struck south in order
+to cross Japan to the Inland Sea en route for Kobe and Tokyo.
+
+As we came through Hyogo prefecture my companion pointed to hill after
+hill which had been afforested since his youth. One of the things
+which interested me was the number and the tameness of the kites which
+were catching frogs in the paddies.
+
+Before I left Hyogo I had the advantage of a chat with one who for
+many years past had thought about the rural situation in Japan
+generally. He spoke of "the late Professor King's idealising of the
+Japanese farmer's condition." He went on: "While King laid stress on
+the ability to be self-supporting on a small area he ignored the
+extent to which many rural people are underfed. The change in the
+Meiji era has been a gradual transference from ownership to tenancy.
+Many so-called representative farmers have been able to add field to
+field until they have secured a substantial property and have ceased
+to be farmers. An extension of tenancy is to be deplored, not only
+because it takes away from the farmer a feeling of independence and of
+incentive, but because it creates a parasitic class which in Japan is
+perhaps even more parasitic than in the West. A landowner in the West
+almost invariably realises that he has certain duties. In Japan a
+landowner's duties to his neighbourhood and to the State are often
+imperfectly understood.
+
+"On the other hand the position of the farmer has been very much
+improved socially. A great deal of pity bestowed by the casual foreign
+visitor is wasted. The farmer is accustomed to extremes of heat and
+cold and to a bare living and poor shelter. And after all there is a
+great deal of happiness in the villages. It is hardly possible to take
+a day's _kuruma_ ride without coming on a festival somewhere, and
+drunkenness has undoubtedly diminished."
+
+I spoke with an old resident about the agricultural advance in the
+prefecture. "In fifteen years," he said, "our agricultural production
+has doubled. As to the non-material condition of the people, generally
+speaking the villagers are very shallow in their religion. Not so long
+ago officials used to laugh at religion, but I don't know that some of
+them are not now changing their point of view. Some of us have thought
+that, just as we made a Japanese Buddhism, we might make a Japanese
+Christianity which would not conflict with our ideas."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[192] This is, I am officially informed, the highest rank ever
+bestowed on a foreigner; but then Hearn was naturalised. In 1921 an
+appreciation of "Koizumi Yakumo" was included by the Department of
+Education in a middle-school textbook. Curiously enough, the fact that
+Hearn married a Japanese is overlooked. Owing to the fact that Hearn
+bought land in Tokyo which has appreciated in value his family is in
+comfortable circumstances.
+
+[193] Coastwise traffic is also forbidden to foreign vessels, as is
+traffic between France and Algeria to other than French vessels.
+
+[194] See Appendix LIII.
+
+
+
+
+TWO MONTHS IN TEMPLE
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE LIFE OF THE PEASANTS AND THEIR PRIESTS
+
+(NAGANO)
+
+The condition of the lower orders is the true mark.--JOHNSON
+
+
+The Buddhist temple in which I lived for about two months stands on
+high ground in a village lying about 2,500 ft. above sea-level in the
+prefecture of Nagano and does not seem to have been visited by
+foreigners. It is reached by a road which is little better than a
+track. No _kuruma_ are to be found in the district, but there are a
+few light two-wheeled lorries. Practically all the traffic is on
+horseback or on foot. There is a view of the Japanese Alps and of
+Fuji.
+
+Running through the village[195] is a river. Most of the summer it may
+be crossed by stepping stones, but the width of the rocky bed gives
+some notion of the volume of water which pours down after rains and on
+the melting of the snow. Two or three miles up from the village a
+considerable amount of water is drawn off into two channels which have
+been dug, one on either side of the river, at a gentler slope than
+that at which the stream flows. The rapid fall of the river is
+indicated by the fact that these channels reach the village more than
+100 ft. above the level at which the river itself enters it. The
+channels, cut as they have been through sharply sloping banks packed
+with boulders and big stones, and strengthened throughout by banking,
+in order to cope as far as possible with the torrents which rage down
+the hillside in winter, represent a vast amount of communal labour. By
+the side of each channel the excavated earth and stones have been used
+to make a path for pack horses. The water which comes down these
+channels serves not only for the ordinary uses of the village but for
+irrigating the rice fields and for driving the many water wheels, the
+plashing and groaning of which are heard night and day.
+
+[Illustration: THE BUDDHIST TEMPLE (WITH SHINTO SHRINE ON THE LEFT)
+IN WHICH THIS CHAPTER WAS WRITTEN]
+
+The whole area of the _oaza_ is officially recorded as 800 _chō_, but
+the real area may be double, or even more than that. About 40 per
+cent. is cultivated either as paddy or as dry land. The remaining 60
+per cent., from which 18 _chō_ may be deducted for house land, is
+under grass and wood. Half of this grass and woodland belongs to the
+_oaza_ and half to private persons. The grass is mostly couch grass
+and weeds. In places there is a certain amount of clover and vetch. Of
+the 200 families, numbering about 1,700 people, less than a dozen are
+tenants. Of the others, a third cultivate their own land and hire
+some more. The remaining two-thirds cultivate their own land and hire
+none. The outstanding crop beyond rice is mulberry. A considerable
+amount of millet and buckwheat is also grown.
+
+The village is obviously well off. The signs are: successful
+sericulture, the large quantity of rice eaten, the number of
+well-looking horses (the millet seems to be grown largely for them,
+but they also receive beans and wheat boiled), the fact that no
+attempt is made to collect the considerable amount of horse manure on
+the roads, the cared-for appearance of the temple and shrines, the
+almost complete absence of tea-houses, the ease with which new land
+may be obtained and the contented look of the people.
+
+One does not expect to find in a remote and wholly Buddhist village
+many other animals than horses, and in this community the additional
+live stock consists of ten goats (kept for giving milk for invalids),
+two pigs and a number of poultry. A working horse over four years was
+worth 150 yen. The value of land[196] is to be considered in relation
+to local standards of value. It is doubtful if the priest, who seemed
+to be comfortably off, is in receipt of more than 250 yen a year. The
+midwife, who belongs to the oldest family and has been trained in
+Tokyo, gets from 2 to 2-1/2 yen per case. As new land is always
+available on the hillsides there is very little emigration to the
+towns, but twenty girls are working in the factories in the big
+silk-reeling centre twelve miles off. The hillside land which is owned
+by the village is not sold but rented to those who want it. To make
+new paddies is primarily a question of having enough capital with
+which to buy the artificial manure required for the crops.
+
+I was given to understand that no one in the village was poor enough
+to need public help, but that the school fees of twelve children were
+paid by the community. This is a system peculiar to Nagano, which is a
+progressive prefecture vying with other prefectures to increase the
+percentage of school attendance. One of the signs of the well-off
+character of the village which appears when one is able to investigate
+a little is that the place is a favourite haunt of beggars, who, I am
+told--every calling is organised--have made it over to the less
+fortunate members of their fraternity. The village has enough money to
+spend to make it worth while for tradesmen from a distance to open
+temporary shops every _Bon_ season and at the New Year festival. A man
+in an average position may lay out 200 yen on his daughter's wedding.
+A farmer who knew his fellow-villagers' position pretty closely said
+he thought that the position of tenant farmers was "rather well." In
+the whole village there might be seventy or eighty householders who
+had some debt, but it was justifiable. In an ordinary year about 150
+farmers would have something to lay by after their twelve months'
+work. Perhaps fifty farmers, if the price of rice or of cocoons were
+low, might be unable to save; but ordinarily they would have something
+in their pockets. About half the farmers are engaged in sericulture--I
+noticed cocoons offered at the shrine. The other half sell their
+mulberry leaf crop to their neighbours. The village, which is perhaps
+400 years old, is increasing in population by about forty every year.
+The family which is said to have founded the village is still largely
+represented in it.
+
+[Illustration: FIRE ENGINE AND PRIMITIVE FIGURES]
+
+The village has as many as six fire engines, which can be moved about
+either on wheels or on runners according to the weather, and as many
+look-out ladders and fire-alarm bells. The young men's association has
+no fewer than half a dozen buildings, the property of the village.
+Five of them are little more than sheds and seem to be used on wet
+days as nurseries and playrooms for children. The sixth is the
+village theatre, playing at which appears to have been abandoned for
+some years. Travelling players give their shows where they will. The
+theatre stands in a space encircled by large trees opposite the chief
+shrine of the village. There is also here a smaller shrine (fox god)
+and some tombstones.
+
+[Illustration: YOUNG MEN'S CLUB ROOM]
+
+Before the chief shrine are two large leaden lanterns. At the base of
+these a considerable strip of metal has been torn away. This unusual
+destruction by village lads caused me to make enquiry. I found that
+the boys had merely enlarged a hole made by adults. The destruction
+had been wrought in order to remove the inscription on the lanterns.
+It was said that the local donor had meanly omitted to make the
+customary gift to the shrine to cover the small expense of lighting
+the lanterns on the occasion of festivals. It was the feeling of the
+villagers, therefore, that he should not be allowed to blazon his name
+in connection with a shabby gift.
+
+[Illustration: MEMORIAL STONES]
+
+There is a ceremony about half a dozen times a year at the chief
+shrine, which is about a century old. The Shinto priest, who seemed to
+be a genuine antiquary, was of opinion that the structure inside the
+shrine might have been built two hundred years ago. In addition to
+this chief shrine and the small shrine near it, there are two other
+shrines in the village, one in the temple yard (god of happiness) and
+the other (horse god) in an open space of its own.
+
+[Illustration: ROOF PROTECTED AGAINST STORMS BY STONES]
+
+But perhaps the most remarkable thing about the non-material life of
+this village is the fact that it contains no fewer than 400 carved
+stones of a more or less religious character. A few are Buddhist; some
+are memorials to priests or teachers; several bear that representation
+of a man and a woman facing one another (p. 265) which is one of the
+oldest mystic emblems; the majority are devoted apparently to the
+horse god. Every man who loses a horse erects a stone. There are two
+persons in the village who can carve these stones at a cost of about 2
+yen. Some stones which are painted red are dedicated to the fire god.
+The 400 stones of which I am speaking do not include grave stones.
+These are seen everywhere, many of them just by the wayside. Nearly
+every family buries in its own ground. Some burial places with stones
+of many forms dating back for a long period of years are extremely
+impressive. At the _Bon_ season the grass on every burying ground is
+carefully cut.
+
+All the shop-keepers seem to own their own houses and all but three
+have some land. There are three _saké_ shops, two of which sell other
+things than _saké_, two general shops, two cake and sweet shops, two
+tobacco shops, a lantern shop and a barber. There are eight
+carpenters, four stonecutters, five plasterers and wall builders, five
+woodcutters, two roof makers, two horse shoers, and in the winter a
+blacksmith. (The cost of putting on four shoes is 60 sen.) All these
+artisans own their own houses and all have land.
+
+As to the health of the village there are two doctors who come every
+other day. One was qualified at Chiba and the other at Sendai. They
+make no charge for advice and the price of medicine is only 10 sen
+unless the materials are expensive. I suppose they may receive
+presents. They also probably have a piece of land. There is no
+veterinary surgeon, but one is to be found in the village which
+composes the other half of the commune.
+
+A physician who had been born in the village and was staying for a few
+days with the Buddhist priest who was my host, thought that 90 per
+cent. of the villagers ate no meat whatever and that only 50 or 60 per
+cent. ate fish, and then only ceremonially, that is at particular
+times in the year when it is the custom in Japan to eat fish. The
+villagers who did eat meat or fish did not take it oftener than twice
+or thrice a month. The canned meat and canned fish in the
+shops--Japanese brands--were used almost entirely for guests. The
+doctor expressed the opinion of most Japanese that "people who do not
+eat meat are better tempered and can endure more." I have heard
+Japanese say that "foreigners are short-tempered because they eat so
+much meat."
+
+We spoke of the considerable consumption of pickles, highly salted or
+fermented. For example, in the ordinary 25-sen _bento_ (lunch) box
+there are three or four different kinds of pickles. The doctor said
+that pickles were not only a means of taking salt and so appetisers to
+help the rice down, but digestives; fermented pickles supplied
+diastase which enabled the stomach to deal promptly with the large
+quantities of rice swallowed.
+
+I asked for the doctor's opinion as to the prevalence of tumours,
+displacements and cancer among women who labour in the fields and have
+to bring up children and do all the housework of a peasant's dwelling.
+The doctor replied that he was disposed to think that cases of the
+ailments I spoke of were not numerous. Cancer was certainly rare. He
+knew that in Japan rickets, goitre and gout were all less common than
+in the West. He expressed the opinion that childbirth was easier than
+in the West. It was a delight to see the fine carriage of the women
+and girls astride on the high saddles of the horses.[197] Both sexes
+in the district wear over their kimonos blue cotton trousers,
+something like a plumber's overall only tighter in the legs. The women
+are certainly strong. One day I saw a woman carrying uphill on her
+back two wooden doors about 6 ft. by 5 ft. 6 ins. An old woman I met
+on the road volunteered her view that women were "stronger" than men.
+She was very much concerned to know how foreigners could live without
+eating rice. She said--and this is characteristically Japanese--that
+she envied me being able to travel all over the world.
+
+[Illustration: OFF TO THE UPLAND FIELDS]
+
+The Buddhist temple is built wholly of wood and the roof is thatched.
+Whenever there was an earthquake the timbers seemed to crackle rather
+than creak. The temple is relatively new and seems to have been built
+with materials given by the villagers and by means of a gift of 1,000
+yen. The workmanship was local and a good deal of it was faulty. This
+may have been due to lack of experience, but it is more likely that
+the cause was limited funds. The plan and proportions of the building
+are excellent and the carving is first-rate. The right of
+"presentation to the living" is in the hands of the village. The
+priest and his family live in a large house on one side of the temple.
+On the other side is a small Shinto shrine to which the priest seems
+to give such attention as is necessary. The temple is Shingon. There
+is a sermon once a year only, or "when some famous man comes." The
+actual temple in which the priest, who showed me a fine collection of
+robes, conducts his services is between forty and fifty mats in area.
+Behind it is the room in which the _ihai_ or tablets of the dead are
+arranged. This part of the building is covered on the outside with
+plaster in the manner of a _kura_ (godown) so as to be fire-proof. On
+either side of the actual temple are rooms very much as in a spacious
+private house. There are two of eighteen and fifteen mats, two of
+twelve and ten mats and two small ones. There is also a wide covered
+_engawa_ (verandah) in front and at the sides. A small kitchen and
+what the auctioneers call the usual offices complete the building.
+
+Right round the temple there is a nice garden which keeps the priest's
+man, a picturesque, sweet-tempered, guileless old fellow, occupied
+much of his time. The priest conducted a service twice a day, at 5:30
+in the morning and at 7:30 in the evening. When he fell ill and had to
+be carried in a litter to the nearest town for an operation, we missed
+his beautiful chanting and expert sounding of the deep-toned gong of
+the sanctuary. The great bell in the court-yard was struck by the
+priest's boy at sundown. The priest kept the old rule against meat. He
+and his wife would not eat even cake or biscuits because they feared
+that there might be milk and butter in them. The couple were very kind
+to us and we enjoyed a delightfully quiet life in the lofty sunny
+temple rooms. I should judge that _Otera San_ (Mr. Temple) was
+respected in the village. His wife was a bustling woman of such
+sweetness and simplicity of nature as can only be found in a far
+valley.
+
+I have mentioned that the total incomings of the priest are probably
+about 250 yen. He receives no salary but has his house free. He must
+"discuss about anything wanted in the temple." I do not suppose he had
+to ask anybody whether he might lodge us or not. He receives
+considerable gifts of rice, perhaps to the value of 120 yen, at any
+rate enough for the whole year. He has also the rent of the "glebe,"
+which consists of 12 _tan_ of paddy, 2 _tan_ of dry field and 10 _tan_
+of woodland. Then there are the gifts which are made to him at
+funerals and for the services he conducts at the villagers' houses on
+the days of the dead. One day during the _Bon_ season every household
+sent a little girl or boy with a present to the priest. In return
+these small visitors were given sweets. During the _Bon_ season some
+very old men of the village came and worshipped at the Shinto shrine
+and were entertained with _saké_ by the priest on the _engawa_ of his
+temple. The amount in the collecting box in front of the little Shinto
+shrine in the temple yard, largely in _rin_, would not be more than 10
+or 15 sen in the year. Most of the contributions are in the form of
+pinches of rice. The priest may give 10 yen a year to his man who
+works about the temple and his house and accompanies him to funerals
+and to the memorial services at the villagers' dwellings; but this
+servitor, like his master, no doubt receives presents.
+
+The Shinto priest is probably not so well off as the Buddhist priest.
+The village makes a small payment to him twice a year. At New Year 3
+yen in all may be flung in the collecting box at the shrine, but the
+priest has presents made to him when he goes to see ailing folk and
+when he officiates at the building of a new house. Most people when
+they are ill seem to send for the Shinto priest. But he explained to
+me that he does not expect a sick man to "worship only." He is
+accustomed to say to the people, "Doctor first, god second," from
+which I was to conclude, one who heard told me, that the priest was
+"rather a civilised man." The Shinto priest had succeeded a relative
+in his position. The village had found its Buddhist priest in a
+neighbouring district.
+
+The Buddhist priest told me that every year 150 or 160 men and women
+made a pilgrimage to a famous shrine some few miles off. The custom
+was for every house to be represented in the pilgrimage. Half a dozen
+people in the year might go on personal pilgrimages and fifty or so
+might visit a little shrine on a neighbouring mountain.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[195] The village consists of about 270 houses. It is joined
+administratively to another village, about two miles off, in order to
+form a _mura_ (commune). The village I am about to describe is an
+_oaza_ (large hamlet), which is made up in its turn of two _aza_
+(small hamlets). These aza are themselves divided into six _kumi_
+(companies), which are again sub-divided, in the case of the largest,
+into four.
+
+[196] See Appendix LIV.
+
+[197] The horses wear basket-work muzzles to prevent them nibbling the
+crops. By way of compensation for these encumbrances they have head
+tassels and belly cloths to keep off the flies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+"BON" SEASON SCENES
+
+(NAGANO)
+
+As moderns we have no direct affinity; as individuals we have a capacity
+for personal sympathy.--MATTHEW ARNOLD
+
+
+I had the good fortune to be in the village during the _Bon_ season.
+The idea is that the spirits which are visiting their old homes remain
+between the 11th and 14th of August. The 11th is called _mukae bon_
+and the 14th _okuri bon_. (_Mukae_ means going to meet; _okuri_ to see
+off.) On the 11th the villagers burned a piece of flax plant in front
+of their houses. That night the priest said a special prayer in the
+temple and used the cymbals in addition to the ordinary gong and drum.
+The prayer seemed peculiarly sad. Before the shrines in their houses
+the villagers placed offerings. One was a horse made out of a
+cucumber, the legs being bits of flax twig and the tail and mane the
+hair-like substance from maize cobs. There were also offerings of real
+and artificial flowers and of grapes. In one house I visited I saw
+_geta_, _waraji_, kimonos, pumpkins, caramels and pencils. Strings of
+buck-wheat macaroni were laid over twigs of flax set in a vase. The
+_ihai_ (name-plates of the dead) seemed to be displayed more
+prominently than usual. (They are kept in a kind of small oratory
+called _ihaido_, and after a time several names are collected on a
+single plate.) _Mochi_ (rice-flour dumpling) is eaten at this time. On
+the 12th and 14th the priest called at each house for two or three
+minutes.
+
+I asked if the villagers really believed that their dead returned at
+the _Bon_ season. The answer was, "Only the old men and young children
+believe that the dead actually come, but the young men and young
+women, when they see the burning of the flax-plant and the other
+things that are done, think of the dead; they remember them solemnly
+at this time." And I think it was so. The stranger to a Japanese
+house, in which there is not only a Shinto shelf but a Buddhist
+shrine--where the name plates of the dead for several generations are
+treasured--cannot but feel that, when all allowances are made for the
+dulling influences of use and wont, the plan is a means of taking the
+minds of the household beyond the daily round. The fact that there is
+a certain familiarity with the things of the shrine and of the Shinto
+shelf, just as there is a certain freedom at the public shrines and in
+the temple, does not destroy the impression. When a man has taken me
+to his little graveyard I have been struck by the lack of that
+lugubriousness which Western people commonly associate with what is
+sacred. The Japanese conception of reverence is somewhat different
+from our own. As to sorrow, the idea is, as is well known, that it is
+the height of bad manners to trouble strangers with a display of what
+in many cases is largely a selfish grief. A manservant smiled when he
+told me of his only son's death. On my offering sympathy the tears ran
+down his face.
+
+[Illustration: FARMER'S WIFE]
+
+When the _Bon_ season ended on the fourteenth all the flowers and
+decorations of the domestic shrines were taken early in the morning to
+the bridge over the diminished river and flung down. The idea is
+perhaps that they are carried away to the sea. (As a matter of fact
+there was so little water that almost everything flung in from the
+bridge remained in sight for weeks until there was a storm.) When the
+flowers and decorations had been cast from the bridge the people went
+off to worship at the graves. Many coloured streamers of paper,
+written on by the priest, were flying there.
+
+The _Bon_ dances took place five nights running in the open space
+between the Shinto shrine and the old barn theatre. Nothing could have
+been duller. The line from _Ruddigore_ came to mind, "This is one of
+our blameless dances." The first night the performers were evidently
+shy and the girls would hardly come forward. Things warmed up a little
+more each night and on the last night of all there was a certain
+animation; but even then the movement, the song and the whole scheme
+of the dance seemed to be lacking in vigour. What happened was that a
+number of lads gradually formed themselves into a ring, which got
+larger or smaller as the girls joined it or waited outside. The girls
+bunched together all the time. None of the dancers ever took hands.
+The so-called dancing consisted of a raising of both arms--the girls
+had fans in their hands--and a simple attitudinising. The lads all
+clapped their hands together in time, but in a half-hearted kind of
+way; the girls struck the palms of their left hands with their fans.
+The boys were in clean working dress. Some had towels wound round
+their heads, some wore caps and others hats. The girls were got up in
+all their best clothes with fine _obi_ and white aprons. The music was
+dirge-like. It was not at all what Western people understand to be
+singing. The performers emitted notes in a kind of falsetto, and these
+five or six notes were repeated over and over and over again. The only
+word I can think of which approximately describes what I heard, but it
+seems harsh, is the Northern word, yowling. First the lads yowled and
+then the girls responded with a slightly more musical repetition of
+the same sounds. For all the notice the boys appeared to take of the
+girls they might not have been present. The lads and lasses were no
+doubt fully conscious, however, of each other's presence. The dancing
+took place on the nights of the full moon. But it was cloudy, and,
+owing to the big surrounding trees, the performance was often dimly
+lit.
+
+To me the dancing was depressing, but that is not to say that the
+dancers found it so. Dancing began at eight o'clock and went on till
+midnight. "They would not be fit for their work next day if they
+danced later," a sober-minded adult explained. This was only one
+suggestion among many that the dance has been devitalised under the
+respectabilising influence of the policeman and village elders who had
+forgotten their youth. To the onlooker it did not seem to matter very
+much whether the dance, as it is now, continues or not. Occasionally
+one had an impression that it had once been a folk dance of vigour and
+significance. But the present-day performance might have been
+conceived and presented by a P.S.A. All this is true when the dance is
+contrasted with an English West-country dance or a dance in Scotland
+at Hallowe'en. But it must be remembered that the _Bon_ dance during
+the first nights is in the nature of a lament for the dead. There is
+something haunting in the strange little refrain, though it is
+difficult to hum or whistle it. Perhaps the whole festival is too
+intimately racial to be fully understood by a stranger. By the end of
+the festival, on the night of merrymaking in honour of the village
+guardian spirit, things were livelier. Some of the lads had evidently
+had _saké_ and even the girls had lost their demureness.
+
+[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD]
+
+After the Buddhist _Bon_ season was over it was the turn of Shinto,
+and the village children were paraded before the shrine. A number of
+Shinto priests in the neighbourhood took a leading part in making the
+customary offerings and the local priest read a longish address to the
+guardian spirit of the village. Respectful correctness rather than
+devoutness is the phrase which one would ordinarily be disposed to
+apply to the ceremonies at a Shinto shrine, but the local priest was
+reverential. The ceremonies of the day evidently meant a great deal to
+him. The children paid a well-drilled attention. They also sang the
+national anthem and a special song for the day under the leadership of
+the school teacher, who played on a portable harmonium which sounded
+as portable harmoniums usually sound. The whole proceedings wore a
+semi-official look.
+
+Happily there was nothing semi-official about the wrestling to which
+we were invited later in the day. A special little platform had been
+put up for us. The ring was made on rice chaff and earth. The
+wrestlers squatted in two parties at opposite sides of the ring. They
+did not wear the straw girdles of the professionals. Each man had a
+wisp of cotton cloth tied round his waist and between his legs. One of
+the best things about the wrestling was the formal introduction of the
+competitors. A weazened little man with a tucked-up cotton kimono and
+bare legs, but with the address and dignity of a "Nō" player,
+proclaimed the names and styles--it seems that the wrestlers have a
+fancy to be known by the names of mountains and rivers--in a fashion
+which recalled the tournament. There was also another personage, with
+a Dan Leno-like face and an extraordinary gift of contorting his legs,
+who played the buffoon, and gyrated round the dignified M.C., who
+remained unmoved while the audience laughed. It was evidently the
+right thing for the prizes--they were awarded at the end of each
+bout--to be presented as comically as possible; and some of the
+Shakespearean humours which appealed so powerfully to the groundlings
+at the Globe were enacted as if neither space nor time intervened
+between us and the Elizabethans.
+
+The bouts were not so fast as professional wrestlers are accustomed
+to, but they were none the less exciting. The result was invariably in
+some doubt and often entirely unexpected. The usual rule was that he
+who threw his man twice was the winner. In some events, immediately a
+wrestler had been thrown, a succession of other contestants rushed at
+the victor, one after the other, without allowing him time even to
+straighten his back. Some of the competitors were poorly developed but
+the lankiest and skinniest were often excellent wrestlers. At an
+interval in the wrestling the committee flung hard peaches to
+wrestlers and spectators. I wanted to make some little acknowledgment
+of the kindness of the young men's association in providing us with
+our little platform, and it was suggested that autographed fans at
+about a penny three-farthings apiece for about forty wrestlers would
+be acceptable. This gift was announced on a long streamer. The funny
+man of the ring also made a speech of welcome. I may add that the
+young men's association had fitted up on the way to the scene of the
+wrestling a number of special lanterns which bore efforts in English
+by a student home for the holidays.
+
+I was told that the people of the village were "honest, independent
+and earnest," and I am disposed to think that this may be true of most
+of them. As to honesty, we had the satisfaction of living without any
+thought of _dorobo_ (robbers). It is a great comfort to be able at
+night to leave open most of the _shoji_ and not to have to pull out
+the _amado_ (wooden shutters) from their case. The nature of our
+possessions was well known not only in the village but throughout the
+district, for there was seldom a day on which a knot of grown-ups or
+children did not come to peer into our rooms. The inspection was
+accompanied by many polite bows and friendly smiles. On a festival day
+the crowd occasionally reached about fifty.
+
+There were formerly several teahouses in the village, but under the
+influence of the young men's association all houses of entertainment
+but two had been closed. These two had become "inns." In one of these
+the girl attendant was the proprietor's daughter; in the other there
+was a solitary waitress. One of the abolished teahouses had taken
+itself two miles away, where possibly it still had visitors. There
+seemed to be two public baths in the village, both belonging to
+private persons. The charge was 1 sen for adults and 5 _rin_ for
+children. At one of the baths I noticed separate doors for men and
+women; in the bath itself the division between the sexes was about two
+feet high.
+
+The smallest subdivision of the village is called _kumi_ or company.
+Each of these has a kind of manager who is elected on a limited
+suffrage. The managers of the _kumi_, it was explained, are "like
+diplomatists if something is wanted against another village." The
+_kumi_ also seems to have some corporate life. There is once a month a
+semi-social, semi-religious meeting at each member's house in turn.
+The persons who attend lay before the house shrine 3 or 5 sen each or
+a small quantity of rice for the feast. The master of the house
+provides the sauce or pickles. I heard also of a kind of _kō_ called
+_mujin_, a word which has also the meaning of "inexhaustible." By such
+agencies as these money is collected for people who are poor or for
+men who want help in their business or who need to go on a journey.
+
+We have seen that the village is by every token well off. What are its
+troubles? Undoubtedly the people work hard. I imagine, however, that
+there are very many districts where the people work much harder. The
+foreigner is too apt to confuse working hard with working
+continuously. Whether outdoors or indoors, whether at a handicraft or
+at business, an Oriental gives the impression of having no notion of
+getting his work done and being finished with it. The working day
+lasts all day and part of the night. Whether much more is done in the
+time than in the shorter Western day may be doubted. During the brief
+silk-worm season many of the women of the village in which I stayed
+are afoot for a long day and for part of the night, but the winter
+brings relief from the strain of all sorts of work. Owing to the snow
+it is practically impossible to do any work out of doors in January,
+February and March. The snow may stop work even in December. Here,
+then, is a natural holiday. Whether with their men indoors the women
+have much of a holiday is uncertain. But indoors should not be taken
+too exactly. There is some hunting in the winter. Deer come within two
+miles and hares are easily got.
+
+Well-off though the village is, there is a strong desire to increase
+incomes. The people are working harder than they have done in the past
+because the cost of living has risen. An attempt is to be made to
+increase secondary employments. Corporately, the village is said to
+possess 10,000 yen in cash in addition to its land. It is said that
+this money is lent out to some of the more influential people. What
+the security is and how safe the monetary resources of a village
+loaned out in this way may be I do not know, but there is obviously
+some risk and I gathered that some anxiety existed.
+
+The people of the village, like a large proportion of the population
+of the prefecture, are distinctly progressive. Nagano is full of what
+someone called "a new rural type" of men who read and delight in going
+to lectures. Lectures are a great institution in Nagano. For these
+lectures country people tramp into a county town in their _waraji_
+carrying their _bento_. To these rustics a lecture is a lecture. A
+friend of mine who is given to lecturing spoke on one occasion for
+seven hours. It is true that he divided the lecture between two days
+and allowed himself a half hour's rest in the middle of each three and
+a half hours' section. He started with an audience of 500. On the
+first day at the end of the second part of the lecture it was noticed
+that the audience had decreased by about 70. On the second day about
+100 people in all wearied in well-doing. But it was the townsfolk, not
+the country people, who left.
+
+[Illustration: A CRADLE]
+
+I found upon enquiry that in the village in which I had been living
+there had been one arrest only during the previous year. The charge
+was one of theft. Half a dozen other people had got into trouble but
+their arrests had been "postponed." Two of these six delinquents had
+"caused fire accidentally," two had been guilty of petty theft, and
+the remaining two had sold things of small value which did not belong
+to them. During the twelve months there had been no charges of
+immorality and no gambling. Perhaps, however, there may have been
+police admonitions. It seemed to have been a long time since there had
+been a case of what we should call illegitimacy or of a child being
+born in the first months of a young couple's marriage. Someone
+mentioned, however, that the girls who went to the silk factories
+were, as a consequence of their life there, "debased morally and
+physically."
+
+A notable thing in the village was four fires, two the month before we
+arrived and two while we were there. They were suspected to have been
+the work of a person of weak intellect. (As in our own villages half a
+century ago, there is in every community at least one "natural.") On
+the night of the first fire we were awakened about 3 a.m. by shouting,
+by the clanging of the fire bell and by the booming of the great bell
+in the temple yard. The fire was about four houses away. It was a
+still night and the flames and sparks went straight up. As the
+possibility of the wind shifting and the fire spreading could not be
+entirely excluded we quickly got our more important possessions on the
+_engawa_--at least a young maidservant did so. The continual
+experience which the Japanese have of fires makes them self-possessed
+on these occasions, and this girl had _futon_, bags, etc., neatly tied
+in big _furoshiki_ (wrapping cloths) in the shortest possible time. It
+was only when she was satisfied that our belongings were in readiness
+for easy removal that she went to look after her own. The
+matter-of-fact, fore-sighted, neat way in which she got to work was
+admirable. With great kindness one of the elders of the village came
+hurriedly to the temple, evidently thinking we should feel alarmed,
+and cried out, "_Yoroshii, Yoroshii_" ("All right").
+
+[Illustration: FIRE ALARM AND OBSERVATION POST]
+
+As I stood before the blaze what struck me most was the orderliness
+and quiet of the crowd and the way in which whatever help was needed
+was at once forthcoming without fuss. The fire brigades were working
+in an orderly way and everything was so well managed that the scene
+seemed almost as if it were being rehearsed for a cinema. One
+difference between what I saw and what would be seen at home at a fire
+was that the scene was well lighted from the front, for the members of
+the fire brigades carried huge lanterns on high poles. From the mass
+of old wet reed in the roadway I judged that the first act of the
+firemen had been to use their long hooks to denude the roof of the
+burning house of its thatch, which in the lightest wind is so
+dangerous to surrounding dwellings. Nobody in the village is insured,
+but the neighbours seem to meet about a third of the loss caused by a
+fire. It is an illustration of local values that a larger subscription
+than 2 yen would not be accepted from me. In connection with this fire
+someone mentioned to me that incendiarism is specially prevalent in
+some prefectures, while in others the use of the knife is the usual
+means of wiping out scores. The phrase used by a person who threatens
+arson is, "I will make the red worm creep into your roof."
+
+During the winter there is too much drinking--"generally by poor
+men"--but there is said to be less of this than formerly. Some people
+stop their newspaper in the summer and resume taking it during the
+greater leisure of the winter. It has been noted, among other small
+matters, that the local vocabulary has expanded during the past
+fifteen years. During our stay the young midwife, who was going to
+America to join her husband, was eager to give her service in the
+kitchen for the chance of improving her English. We also gave help in
+the evenings thrice a week to one of the school teachers who had
+managed to obtain a fair reading knowledge of English. The earnestness
+with which these two people studied was touching. While I was in the
+village the young men's association began the issue of a magazine.
+Lithographic ink was brought to me so that I might contribute in
+autograph as well as in translation. The association, which receives
+10 yen a year from the village, cultivates several plots of paddy and
+dry land. The bigger schoolboys drilled with imitation rifles,
+imitation bayonets and imitation cartridges. I felt that I should know
+more about the villagers if I could learn, like Synge, their topics of
+conversation when no stranger was present. One day while strolling
+with a friend I asked him what was being said by two girls who were
+working among the mulberries and were hidden from us by a hedge
+(hedges only occur round mulberry plots). He told me that one was
+enhancing to her companion the tremendous dignity of the Crown Prince
+by exaggerating grotesquely the size of the house he lived in, which
+reminded me of the servant who told her friend that "Queen Victoria
+was so rich that she had a piano in her kitchen." Generally the
+conversational topics of the villagers seemed to be people and prices.
+Undoubtedly, I was told, the subjects which were most popular,
+"because they provoked hilarity," were family discords and sexual
+questions. One man with whom I spoke about the morality of the village
+said cautiously, "They say there are some moneylenders here."
+
+
+
+
+IN AND OUT OF THE TEA PREFECTURE
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+PROGRESS OF SORTS
+
+(SHIDZUOKA AND KANAGAWA)
+
+I am not of those who look for perfection amongst the rural
+population.--BORROW
+
+
+The torrents that foam down the slopes of Fuji are a cheap source of
+electricity, and, though the guide book may not stress the fact, it is
+possible that the first glimpse of the unutterable splendours of the
+sacred mountain may be gained in the neighbourhood of a cotton, paper
+or silk factory. The farmers welcomed the factories when they found
+that factory contributions to local rates eased the burden of the
+agricultural population. The farmers also realised that to the
+factories were due electric light, the telephone, better roads and
+more railway stations. The farmers are undoubtedly better off. They
+are so well off indeed that the district can afford an agricultural
+expert of its own, children may be seen wearing shoes instead of
+_geta_, and the agriculturists themselves occasionally sport coats cut
+after a supposedly Western fashion. But the people, it was insisted,
+have become a little "sly," and girls return from the factories less
+desirable members of the community.
+
+Mention of these matters led an agricultural authority whom I met
+during my trip in Shidzuoka to deliver himself on the general question
+of the condition of the farmer in Japan. He expressed the opinion that
+10 per cent. of the farmers were in a "wretched condition." Big
+holdings--if any holdings in Japan can be called big--were getting
+bigger; it was an urgent question how to secure the position of the
+owners of the small and the medium-sized classes of holding. The fact
+that many rural families were in debt, not for seed or manure but for
+food spoke for itself. The amounts might seem trivial in Western eyes,
+but when the average income was only 350 yen a year a debt of 80 yen
+was a serious matter; and 80 yen was the average debt of farming
+families in the prefecture of Shidzuoka. No one could say that the
+farmers were lazy: they were working hard according to their lights.
+They were working too hard, perhaps, on the limited food they got.
+There could be no doubt that the physical condition of the countryman
+was being lowered.
+
+Again, there was the fact of the rural exodus--the phrase sounded
+strangely in the middle of a Japanese sentence. As to the causes, the
+first unquestionably was that the farmer had not enough land on which
+to make a living. If the farmer could have 5 acres or thereabouts he
+would be well off. But the average area per farmer in the prefecture
+in which we were travelling was a little less than 2-1/2 acres. High
+taxes were another cause of the farmer's present condition. Then a
+year's living would be mortgaged for the expenses of a marriage
+ceremony. At a funeral, too, the neighbours came to eat and drink.
+They took charge of the kitchen and even ordered in food. (After a
+Japanese feast the guests are given at their departure the food that
+is left over.) Further, some farmers wasted their substance on the
+ambitions of local politics. Again, conscripts who had gone off to the
+army hatless and wearing straw shoes came home hatted and sometimes
+booted. Military service deprived farmers of labour, and their boys
+while away asked their parents for money. Conscription pressed more
+heavily on the poor because the sons of well-to-do people continued
+their education to the middle school, and attendance at a middle
+school entitled a young man to reduction of military service to one
+year only.[198]
+
+The countryside was suffering from the way in which importance was
+increasingly attached to industry and commerce. Many M.P.s were of the
+agricultural class, but they were chiefly landlords, and they were
+often shareholders and directors of industrial companies. There was
+very little real Parliamentary representation of the farming class and
+it had not yet found literary expression. There were signs, however,
+that some landlords were realising that industry and agriculture were
+not of equal importance. But the farmers were slow to move. The
+traditions of the Tokugawa epoch survived, making action difficult.
+Finally, there was the drawback to rural development which exists in
+the family system. But that, as Mr. Pickwick said, comprises by itself
+a difficult study of no inconsiderable magnitude, and we must return
+to it on another occasion.
+
+In one of my excursions I went over a large agricultural school, the
+boast of which was that of all the youths who had passed through it,
+twenty only had deserted the land. I met the present scholars marching
+with military tread, mattocks on shoulders, to the school paddies.
+
+I noticed schoolgirls wearing a wooden tablet. It was a good-conduct
+badge. If a girl was not wearing it on reaching home her parents knew
+that her teacher had retained it because of some fault; if she was not
+wearing it at school her teacher knew that her parents had kept it
+back for a similar reason. The girls when they come to school have
+often baby brothers or sisters tied on their backs. Otherwise the
+girls would have to stay at home in order to look after them. I asked
+a schoolmaster what happened when children were kept at home. He said
+that when a child had been absent a week he called twice on the
+parents in order to remonstrate. If there was no result he reported
+the matter to the village authorities, who administered two warnings.
+Failing the return of the truant a report was made by the village
+authorities to the county authorities. They summoned the father to
+appear before them. This meant loss of time and the cost of the
+journey. Should the parent choose to continue defiant he was fined 5
+to 10 yen for disobedience to authority and up to 30 yen for not
+sending his child to school.
+
+I found that a local philanthropic association had provided the
+speaker's school with a supply of large oil-paper-covered umbrellas so
+that children who had come unprovided could go home on a rainy day
+without a parent, elder brother or sister having to leave work to
+bring an umbrella to school.
+
+In the playground of this school there was a low platform before which
+the children assembled every morning. The headmaster, standing on the
+platform, gravely saluted the children and the children as gravely
+responded. The scholars also bowed in the direction of Tokyo, in the
+centre of which is the Emperor's palace. An inscription hanging in the
+school was, "Exert yourself to kill harmful insects." In another
+school there was a portrait of a former teacher who had covered the
+walls of the school with water-colours of local scenery. I noticed in
+the playground of a third school a flower-covered cairn and an
+inscribed slab to the memory of a deceased master. Every school
+possesses equipment taken from the enemy during the Russo-Japanese
+war, usually a shell, a rifle and bayonet and an entrenching spade.
+
+In this prefecture I heard of young men's associations' efforts to
+discourage "cheek binding," which is the wearing of the head towel in
+such a way as to disguise the face and so enable the cheek binder to
+do, if he be so minded, things he might not do if he were
+recognisable.
+
+One day I made my headquarters in a town that had just been rebuilt
+after a fire. Within four hours the blaze aided by a strong wind had
+consumed 1,700 houses and caused the deaths of nine persons. The
+destruction of so many dwellings is wrought by bits of paper or
+thatch, or the light pieces of wood from the _shoji_, which are
+carried aflame by the wind, setting fire to several houses
+simultaneously.
+
+Beside street gutters I came across little stone _jizō_, the
+cheerful-looking guardian deities of the children playing near; but
+they looked as incongruous in the position they occupied as did a
+small shrine which was standing in the shadow of a gasometer.
+
+I heard of contracts under which girls served as nurse girls in
+private families. A poor farmer may enter into a contract when his
+girl is five for her to go into service at eight. He receives cash in
+anticipation of the fulfilment of the contract.
+
+I was assured by a man competent to speak on the matter that a
+certain small town was notorious for receiving boys who had been
+stolen as small children from their homes in the hills. Up to 30 yen
+might be given for a boy. There might be a dozen of such unfortunates
+in the place. Happily many of the children obtained by this "slave
+system," as my informant called it, ran away as soon as they were old
+enough to realise how they had been treated.
+
+I visited a well-known rural reformer in the village which he and his
+father had improved under the precepts of Ninomiya. The hillside had
+been covered with tea, orange trees and mulberry; the community had
+not only got out of debt but had come to own land beyond its
+boundaries; gambling, drunkenness and immorality, it was averred, had
+"disappeared"; there were larger and better crops; and "the habit of
+enjoying nature" had increased. The amusements of the village were
+wrestling, fencing, _jūjitstu_, and the festivals.
+
+I heard here a story of how a bridge which was often injured by stores
+was as often mysteriously repaired. On a watch being kept it was found
+that the good work was done by a villager who had been scrupulous to
+keep secret his labours for the public welfare. Another tale was of a
+poor man who bought an elaborate shrine and brought it to his humble
+dwelling. On his neighbours suggesting that a finer house were a
+fitter resting-place for such a shrine, the man replied: "I do not
+think so. My shrine is the place of my parents and ancestors, and may
+be fine. But the place in which the shrine stands is my place; it need
+not be fine."
+
+In travelling the roads notices are often seen on official-looking
+boards with pent roofs. But all of these notices are not official; one
+I copied was the advertisement of a shrine which declared itself to be
+unrivalled for toothache. The horses on the roads are sometimes
+protected from the sun by a kind of oblong sail, which works on a
+swivel attached to the harness. Black velvety butterflies as big as
+wrens flit about. (There are twice as many butterflies and moths in
+Japan as at home.) Snakes, ordinarily of harmless varieties, are
+frequently seen, dead or alive.
+
+Many of the people one passes are smoking, usually the little brass
+pipe used both by men and women, which, like some of the earliest
+English pipes, does not hold more tobacco than will provide a few
+draws. The pipe is usually charged twice or thrice in succession. One
+notices an immense amount of cigarette smoking, which cannot be
+without ill effect. There is a law forbidding smoking below the age of
+twenty. It is not always enforced, but when enforced there is a
+confiscation of smoking materials and a fining of the parents. The
+voices of many middle-aged women and some young ones are raucous owing
+to excessive smoking of pipes or cigarettes.
+
+I looked into a school and saw the wall inscription, "Penmanship is
+like pulling a cart uphill. There must be no haste and no stopping."
+Here, as in so many places, I saw the well-worn cover and much-thumbed
+pages of _Self Help_. I may add a fact which would be in its place in
+a new edition of Smiles's _Character_. As a simple opening to
+conversation I often asked if a man had been in Europe or America. His
+answer, if he had not travelled, was never "No." It was always "Not
+yet."
+
+In these country schools most of the songs are set to Western tunes.
+Such airs as "Ye Banks and Braes," "Auld Lang Syne," "Annie Laurie,"
+"Home, Sweet Home" and "The Last Rose of Summer" are utilised for the
+songs not only of school children but of university students. Few of
+the singers have any notion that the music was not written in their
+own land. A Japanese friend told me that all the airs I mentioned
+"seem tender and touching to us," and I remember a Japanese
+agricultural expert saying, "Reading those poems of Burns, I believe
+firmly that our hearts can vibrate with yours."
+
+As I have denied myself the pleasure of dwelling on Japanese scenic
+beauties, I may not pause to bear witness to the faery delights of
+cherry blossom which I enjoyed everywhere during this journey. But I
+may record two cherry-blossom poems I gathered by the way. The first
+is, "Why do you wear such a long sword, you who have come only to see
+the cherry blossoms?" The second is, "Why fasten your horse to the
+cherry tree which is in full bloom, when the petals would fall off if
+the horse reared?" A Japanese once told me that a foreigner had
+greatly surprised him by asking if the cherry trees bore much fruit.
+
+Orange as well as tea culture is a feature of the agricultural life of
+the prefecture. As in California and South Africa, ladybirds have been
+reared in large numbers in order to destroy scale. I saw at the
+experiment station miserable orange trees encaged for producing scale
+for the breeding ladybirds. The insects are distributed from the
+station chiefly as larvae. They are sent through the post about a
+hundred at a time in boxes. The ladybird, which has, I believe, eight
+generations a year, and as an adult lives some twenty days, lays from
+200 to 250 eggs, 150 of the larvae from which may survive. Alas for
+the released ladybirds of Shidzuoka! Scale is said to be disappearing
+so quickly that they are having but a hard life of it.
+
+In the neighbouring prefecture of Kanagawa I paid a visit to a
+gentleman who, with his brother, had devoted himself extensively to
+fruit and flower growing. Their produce was sent the twenty-six hours'
+journey by road to Tokyo, where four shops were maintained. A
+considerable quantity of foreign pears had been produced on the
+palmette verrier system. The branches of the extensively grown native
+pear are everywhere tied to an overhead framework which completely
+covers in the land on which the trees stand. This method was adopted
+in order to cope with high winds and at the same time to arrest
+growth, for in the damp soil in which Japanese pears are rooted, the
+branches would be too sappy. Foreign pears are not more generally
+cultivated because they come to the market in competition with
+oranges, and the Japanese have not yet learnt to buy ripe pears. The
+native pear looks rather like an enormous russet apple but it is as
+hard as a turnip, and, though it is refreshing because of its
+wateriness, has little flavour. Progress is being made with peaches
+and apricots. Figs are common but inferior. A fine native fruit, when
+well grown, is the _biwa_ or loquat. And homage must be paid to the
+best persimmons, which yield place only to oranges and
+tangerines.[199] In the north the apples are good, but most orchards
+are badly in need of spraying. Experiments have been made with dates.
+Flowers have a weaker scent than in Europe. A rose called the
+"thousand _ri_"--a _ri_ is two and a half miles--has only a slight
+perfume two and a half inches away, and then only when pulled. I met
+with no heather--it is to be seen in Saghalien, which has several
+things in common with Scotland--but found masses of sweet-scented
+thyme.
+
+One of the horticulturists to whom I have referred was something of an
+Alpinist and was married to a Swiss lady. They had several children. I
+also met an American lady who had had great experience of fruit
+growing in California, had married a Japanese farmer there, and had
+come to live with him in a remote part of his native country. From
+such alliances as these there may come some day a woman's impressions
+of the life and work of women and girls on the farms and in the
+factories of rural Japan. Many a visitor to the country districts must
+have marked the dumbness of the women folk. Women were often present
+at the conversations I had in country places, but they seldom put in a
+word. I was received one day at the house of a man who is well known
+as a rural philanthropist--he has indeed written two or three
+brochures on the problems of the country districts--but when he, my
+friend and I sat at table his wife was on her knees facing us two
+rooms off. Every instructed person knows that there is a beautiful
+side to the self-suppression of the Japanese woman--many moving
+stories might be told--and that the "subservience" is more apparent
+than real. But there is certainly unmerited suffering. The men and
+women of the Far East seem to be gentler and simpler, however, than
+the vehement and demonstrative folk of the West, and conditions which
+appear to the foreign observer to be unjust and unbearable cannot be
+easily and accurately interpreted in Western terms. At present many
+women who are conscious of the situation of their sex see no means of
+improvement by their own efforts. But the development of the women's
+movement is proceeding in some directions at a surprising pace. Many
+young men are sincerely desirous to do their part in bringing about
+greater freedom. They realise what is undoubtedly true that not a few
+things which urgently need changing in Japan must be changed by men
+and women working together.
+
+Money has always been forthcoming, officially, semi-officially and
+privately, for sending to America and Europe numbers of intelligent
+young men and women. So disciplined and studious are most of these
+young people that their country has had back with interest every yen
+of the funds so wisely provided. We have much to learn from Japanese
+methods in this matter of well-considered post-graduate foreign
+travel.[200]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[198] See Appendix LXIII.
+
+[199] See Appendix LV.
+
+[200] See Appendix LVI.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+GREEN TEA AND BLACK
+
+(SHIDZUOKA)
+
+Things I would know but am forbid
+By time and briefness.
+
+LAURENCE BINYON
+
+
+More than half of the tea grown in Japan comes from the hilly
+coast-wise prefecture of Shidzuoka through which every traveller
+passes on his journey from Kobe or Kyoto to Tokyo. He sees a terraced
+cultivation of tea and fruit carried up to the skyline. But there is
+more tea on the hills than the passenger in the train imagines. When
+viewed from below much of the tea looks like scrub. In various parts
+of southern Japan patches of tea may be noticed growing on little
+islands in the paddies, but tea is a hill plant and it is on the sides
+of hills and on the plateaus at the top of them that the plantations
+are to be found.
+
+Tea looks not unlike privet and grows or is made to grow like box to a
+height which can be conveniently picked over. The rows of neat-looking
+plants are half a dozen feet apart. The first picking may take place
+when the bush is three or four years old. Bushes may last forty, fifty
+or even a hundred years, but the ordinary life of tea is between
+twenty and thirty. A bush is usually cut back every ten years or so. A
+good deal depends on the pruning. After each picking the bushes are
+cut over with the shears just as we trim box. These trimmings may be
+used to make an inferior tea for farmhouse consumption, or they may be
+utilised in the manufacture of caffeine or theine--the two products
+are indistinguishable. Usually the bushes are cut round-topped, but
+occasionally they are roof-shaped and sometimes they are like giant
+green toadstools.
+
+The characteristic feature of a tea district beyond the rows of tea
+bushes is the chimney piping of the farmhouses which manufacture their
+own tea. (The word manufacture is used in the original sense, for
+farmhouse tea is hand-made.) In a country where the houses are
+chimneyless these galvanised iron chimneys are conspicuous.
+
+The picking of the tea seems to be done almost entirely by women and
+children. The pickers are supposed to take only the three leaves at
+the tips. But the pickers mostly take bigger pieces, for the somewhat
+higher price given for good picking is not enough to secure three-leaf
+stuff only. It is not absolutely necessary, however, that the leaves
+gathered should be all of such a choice sort.
+
+Women and girls come from a distance to pick tea. Picking is regarded
+as "polite labour by the daughters of the higher middle class of
+farmers." It has also the attraction that farmers' sons have a way of
+visiting tea gardens in order to "pick up wives." The girls certainly
+give would-be husbands every chance of seeing what they can do, for
+they are at work for a long day, often of from twelve to fourteen
+hours. In such a day it is possible, I was told, to pick 50, 80 or
+even 100 lbs. of leaves. One man put the rate as from 50 to 120 pieces
+a minute. Four pounds of leaves make a pound of tea.
+
+In one district the first picking may take place during the first
+three weeks of May. In colder districts it is proceeding until the end
+of the month. The second season is from the end of June until the
+beginning of July. The third is in August. The bushes, after producing
+their three crops of leaves, bear in November their seeds, which are
+about three-quarters of an inch in diameter and are worth about a sen
+a pound. Oil is pressed from them.
+
+Good tea depends on climate and soil, careful cutting over and good
+manuring. In some places I saw soya bean being grown between the rows
+as green manuring. Like so many other crops, tea is or ought to be
+sprayed. The northern limit of tea is Niigata, where the bushes must
+be protected from the snow, which may fall in that prefecture to a
+great depth. The region in which tea cannot be grown is that in which
+the temperature falls below zero for two months. Tea is not grown, as
+in India and Ceylon, by tea planters, but in small areas and as a
+side-line at that. I never saw a plantation of more than five acres.
+Most areas are much smaller. The chief reason for this is that tea is
+largely manufactured on the day on which it is picked and the capacity
+of a farmer's tea manufacturing equipment is limited. In Shidzuoka
+nearly a quarter of the tea is hand rolled and three-quarters made by
+machinery. Elsewhere in Japan half the crop may be hand rolled.
+
+When leaves are sold to factors the transactions take place in booths
+opened by them in the tea districts. It is a busy scene in the region
+of the cottage factories. One is on a wide plateau covered almost
+entirely with rows of tea plants. Here and there are parties of
+chattering pickers, their heads protected by the national towel.
+Against the blue hilltops on the horizon stand out the cottages of the
+farmers with chimney-pipes smoking, the booths of the dealers, and, in
+every patch of tea, the thatched roof over the precious sunken pot of
+liquid manure by which the tea bushes have so often benefited. On the
+road one passes women with baskets on their backs, like Scotch
+fish-wives with their creels, men carrying two baskets suspended from
+a pole across one shoulder, or a man and his wife hauling a barrow,
+all heavy-laden with newly picked leaves. Small horse-drawn wagons
+carry the manufactured tea in big, well-tied, pink paper bales. On the
+whole, although the labour is hard it seemed a better life having to
+do with the fragrant tea than with the rice of the sludge ponds in the
+valley below.
+
+[Illustration: RACK FOR DRYING RICE.]
+
+[Illustration: VILLAGE CREMATORIUM.]
+
+[Illustration: DOG HELPING TO PULL JINRIKISHA.]
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR, MR. YAMASAKI AND YOUNGEST INHABITANTS.]
+
+The tea produced in Japan is principally green tea. Most of this is of
+the kind called _sencha--cha_ means tea. An inferior article made out
+of older and tougher leaves is called _bancha_. The custom is for the
+maid who serves _bancha_ to heat the leaves over the charcoal fire
+just before infusing. This gives it an agreeable roasted flavour. It
+is often served in a darker shade of porcelain than is used for
+ordinary tea. There are also the finer teas, _kikicha_ (powdered tea)
+and _gyokuro_ (jewelled dewdrops), which is the best kind of _sencha_.
+Black tea was being made experimentally when I first arrived in Japan.
+Brick tea (pressed to the consistency and weight of wood) may be green
+or black. Most of the exported tea, other than brick tea, goes to
+America.
+
+[Illustration: "TORII" AT FOX-GOD SHRINE.]
+
+[Illustration: RECORD OF GIFTS TO A TEMPLE.]
+
+It is unnecessary to state that the Japanese tea-tray does not include
+a sugar basin, cream jug or spoons. It does include, however, a squat
+oval jug into which the hot water from the kettle is poured in order
+to lower the temperature below boiling point. Boiling water would
+bring out a bitter flavour from the tea. Made with water just below
+boiling point the tea is deliciously soft, even oily, and has a
+flavour and aroma which cream and sugar would ruin. It is certainly
+refreshing, and, when drunk newly infused, relatively harmless.
+_Bancha_ is made with hotter water than other tea. The handleless cups
+hold about half of what our teacups contain.[201] Tea is not the only
+plant used for making "tea." One drinks in some parts infusions of
+cherry, plum or peach blossom.
+
+The processes of tea manufacture in farmers' outhouses and in
+factories are described in school-books, and I need not transcribe my
+impressions.[202] But I may note that some of the money the tea farmer
+earns for the country is spent in his interests. There is in Shidzuoka
+a well-directed prefectural experiment station which exercises itself
+over problems of tea production. Every tea grower and tea dealer in
+the prefecture must belong to the prefectural tea guild. He must also
+belong to his county tea guild. The rules of the guilds--there is a
+central guild in Tokyo--have the force of law. Evil doers in the tea
+industry have their product confiscated. Tea dealers who do not carry
+their guild membership card are fined. It is not difficult to discover
+colouring in tea if it is rubbed on white paper. The Government's part
+in subduing tea colouring was to seize all the dye stuff it could lay
+hold of which could be used for colouring tea.
+
+The future of green tea depends almost entirely on the demand from
+the growing population of Japan, but a taste for the "foreign style"
+black tea--with condensed milk--is spreading. The cheap labour of
+India and China and the big plantations and factories of India have
+diminished the Japanese green tea trade and the effort to produce
+black tea is also met by foreign competition. I was told that China
+tea receives much sunshine while growing, and that there was most hope
+for Japanese black tea when made from leaves grown in the extreme
+south. There is a difference between the Chinese and the Japanese tea
+plant and it cannot be got over by importing Chinese plants, for the
+climate of Japan simply Japanises the imported sort.
+
+I found in the United States that green tea is bought, as it is no
+doubt sold in Shidzuoka, on appearance. American housewives were
+paying for an appearance that matters little in an article that is not
+to be looked at but soaked. Not only is much extra labour required for
+sifting the leaf several times in order to obtain a good appearance,
+but the bulk is reduced from 5 to 10 per cent. The drinking quality of
+the tea also suffers, for the largest leaf has usually the best cup
+quality. If teas were bought for cup quality only they might be at
+least from 5 to 10 per cent. cheaper.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[201] At many stations one used to have handed into the carriage for
+less than a penny a pot of tea and a cup--you are entitled to keep
+both pot and cup if you like. The tea-seller's kettle of water is kept
+hot with charcoal. Tea is freshly infused in each customer's pot.
+
+[202] For statistics and theine percentages, see Appendix LVII.
+
+
+
+
+EXCURSIONS FROM TOKYO
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+A COUNTRY DOCTOR AND HIS NEIGHBOURS
+
+(CHIBA)
+
+What was yet wanting must be sought by fortuitous and unguided
+excursions and gleaned as industry should find or chance should
+offer.--JOHNSON
+
+
+When I first went to Chiba, the peninsular prefecture lying across the
+bay from Tokyo, many carriages in the trains were heated by iron
+_hibachi_[203]with pieces of old carpet thrown over them. It is on the
+Chiba trains that the recruits of that section of the army which has
+to do with the operation of the railways learn their business. It is
+in part of Chiba--and also in a district in Tokyo prefecture--that the
+earliest rice is grown. Chiba also contains more poultry than any
+other prefecture.[204] It has the further distinction of having tried
+to issue truthful crop statistics.[205]
+
+Wherever one goes in Japan one is impressed by the large consumption
+of fish--fresh, dried, and salted. Thin slices of raw fish make one of
+the tasty dishes at a Japanese meal. The foreigner, forgetting the
+Western relish for oysters and clams, is repelled by this raw fish,
+but a liking for it seems to be quickly acquired. In Tokyo the slices
+of raw fish are cut from the meaty bonito (tunny), but _tai_ (bream)
+is also used. Bonito also provides the long narrow steaks, dried to a
+mahogany-like hardness, which are known as _katsubushi_. This
+_katsubushi_ keeps indefinitely and is grated or shaved with a kind
+of plane and used much as the Western cook employs Parmesan cheese.
+
+I heard a man in Chiba combating very strongly the idea of there being
+a connection between leprosy and fish eating. As to leprosy, it is
+doubtful if the belief expressed by the Chinese name for the disease,
+"heavenly punishment," has disappeared. There are at least 24,000
+lepers in Japan, and as a well-known Japanese work of reference
+casually remarks, "the hospitals can at present accommodate only 5 per
+cent. of them."
+
+I could not but compare the undulating countryside, on which so vast
+an amount of labour had been expended, with what it would have been
+under European treatment and the influence of an European
+climate--possibly picturesque pasture with high hedges. The congeries
+of rice fields was fringed, where the water supply had given out, with
+upland cultivation. On the low mud walls which separated the paddies
+beans grew except at a boundary corner, where a tea or mulberry bush
+served as a landmark. In looking down or up the little valleys one saw
+how completely the houses had been brushed aside to the foot of the
+low hills so that no land cultivable as paddies should be wasted. This
+intensely developed countryside was not however ideal land. It was
+often much too sandy. Not a few paddies had to depend to some extent
+on the water they could catch for themselves. A naturally draughty and
+hungry land was yielding crops by a laborious manurial improvement of
+its physical and chemical condition, by wonders being wrought in rural
+hydraulics and by unending industry in cultivation and petty
+engineering.
+
+It might be supposed that beauty had gone from the countryside. Some
+of what the land agents call the amenities of the district had
+certainly disappeared. There seemed to be nowhere for the pedestrian
+to sit down in order to refresh himself with those rural sights and
+sounds which exhilarate the spirit. But this marvellously delved,
+methodised and trimmed countryside had a character and a stimulus of
+its own. It reflected the energy and persistence that had subdued it.
+I saw nothing ugly. The tidied rice plots, shaped at every possible
+curve and angle, and eloquent of centuries of unremitting toil; the
+upland beyond them, worked to a skilled perfection of finish; the
+nesting houses which nowhere offended the eye; the big still ponds
+contrived by the rude forefathers of the hamlet for water storage or
+the succour of the rice in the hottest weather; the low hilltops green
+with pine because cultivation could not ascend so far, and hiding here
+and there a Shinto sanctuary: such a countryside was satisfying in its
+own way.
+
+In Chiba, as in other prefectures, one is impressed by the way in
+which the exertions of many generations have resulted in the levelling
+of wide areas and even the complete removal of small hills. In many
+places one can still see low hills in process of demolition. In Tokyo
+itself several small hills have been carried off in recent years.
+
+I was in Chiba several times and I remember to have noticed one winter
+day with what considered roughness the paddies had been dug in order
+to receive from frost and sun the benefits which are as good as a
+manuring. Some notion of the strength of the weather forces at work
+may be gathered from the fact that, though I was walking without an
+overcoat and was glad to shade my eyes by pulling down the brim of my
+hat, the frost of the two previous nights had produced ice on the
+paddies an inch thick.
+
+Sometimes at the irrigation reservoirs one may see notice boards
+announcing that these water areas are stocked with _koi_ (carp). This
+fish is also kept in the paddies. The carp are put in as yearlings or
+two-year-olds, when the paddies are flooded, and a score out of every
+hundred come out in the autumn--assuming the happiest conditions--ten
+inches or so long. Carp culture flourishes in the sericulture
+districts, where the pupæ which remain when the cocoons are unwound
+are thrown to the fish; but pupæ fed carp have a flavour which
+diminishes their value. Indeed paddy-field fish, which on the whole
+must have a rather troubled existence, do not bring the price of river
+carp. Other fish than carp, eels for instance, are also kept in
+paddies.[206]
+
+I visited a vigorous personality who was at once a landowner and
+rural oculist, as his father and grandfather had been before him. He
+had graduated at Tokyo and had kept himself abreast of German
+specialist literature. There was accommodation for about a hundred
+patients in the buildings attached to his house. He believed in the
+efficacy in eye cases of "the air of the rice fields," not to speak of
+the shrine which overlooks the patients' quarters. As the number of
+blind people in Japan is appalling,[207] it was interesting to hear
+the opinion that the chief causes were gonorrhœa, inadequate attention
+at birth, insufficient nourishment in childhood and nervous
+disease--all more or less preventible. Nearly a quarter of my host's
+patients had had their eyes wounded by rice-stem points while stooping
+in the paddies. As the people are hurt in the busy season they often
+put off coming for help until it is too late.
+
+The landowner-oculist's premises were lighted by natural gas from a
+depth of 900 ft. According to a fellow-guest, who happened to be an
+expert in this matter, natural gas is to be had all over Japan.[208]
+
+The room in which I slept belonged to a part of the house which was of
+great age, but by my _futon_ there was laid an electric torch.
+
+A pleasant thing during my visit was the presence of a dozen
+intelligent, kindly students who early in the evening came and knelt
+in a semicircle round us, "in order to profit by our talk." One of
+them, a son of the house, an athlete (and now, after travelling in
+Europe, his father's successor), did all sorts of services for me
+during my stay, in the simple-hearted fashion that shows such an
+attractive side of the Japanese character. One question asked by the
+students was, "For what reasons does _Sensei_ believe that the
+influence of women in public life would be good?" Another enquiry was,
+"Which are the best London and Paris papers?" These lads could hardly
+hope to get through the university before they were twenty-five or
+twenty-six. Yet, compared with our undergraduates, they had very
+little time for general reading, discussions and outdoor sports. I
+remember a man of some experience in the educational world saying to
+me, "Our students do not read enough apart from their studies; it is
+their misfortune." They have not only the burden of having to learn
+nearly several thousand ideographs,[209] three scripts and Japanese
+and Chinese pronunciation. They have to acquire Western languages,
+which, owing to their absolute dissimilarity from Oriental
+tongues--for example, the word for "I" is _watakushi_--must be learnt
+entirely from memory. It is not that the Japanese student does not
+begin early as well as leave off late. A professor once said to me,
+"For some little time after I first went to school I was still fed
+from the bosom of my mother." In some ways it is no doubt a source of
+strength for Japan that her men can spend from their earliest years to
+the age of twenty-six on the acquirement of knowledge and
+self-discipline--the privileges of the student class and the
+generosity of their families and friends and the public at large are
+remarkable--but the disadvantages are plain. No sight seems stranger
+to a new arrival in Japan than that of so many men in their middle or
+late twenties still wearing the conspicuous kimono and German bandsman
+cap of the student.
+
+To return to our host, he told us that tenants were "getting clever."
+They were paying their rent in "worse and worse qualities of rice."
+The landlords "encouraged" their tenants with gifts of tools, clothes
+or saké in order that they might bring them the best rice, but the
+tenants evidently thought it paid better to forgo these benefits and
+market their best rice. This raises the question whether rent ought
+nowadays to be paid in kind. Rural opinion as a whole is in favour of
+continuing in the old way, but there is a clear-headed if small
+section of rural reformers which is for rent being paid in cash.
+
+One thing I found in my notes of my talk with the landowner-oculist I
+hesitated to transcribe without confirmation. Speaking of the physique
+of the people, he had said that few farmers could carry the weights
+their fathers and grandfathers could move about. But later on a high
+agricultural authority mentioned to me that it had been found
+necessary to reduce the weight of a bale of rice from 19 to 18
+_kwamme_ and then to 15--1 _kwamme_ is 8.26 lbs.
+
+In the _oaza_ in which I was staying there were eighty families.
+Seventy were tenants. Under a savings arrangement initiated by my
+host, the hamlet, including its five peasant proprietors, was saving
+120 yen a month. On the other hand, more than half the tenants were in
+debt "in connection with family excesses," such as weddings, births
+and burials. But there might be unknown savings. I should state that
+the villagers seemed contented enough.
+
+For some reason or other I was particularly struck by the sturdiness
+of the small girls. This was interesting because Chiba had for long an
+evil reputation for infanticide, and under a system of infanticide in
+the Far East it would be supposed--I have heard this view stoutly
+questioned--that more girls die than boys. The landowner-oculist was
+of opinion that in stating the causes of the low economic condition of
+his tenants the abating of infanticide must be put first. People no
+longer restricted themselves to three of a family. The average area
+available locally was only 6 _tan_ of paddy and 1.2 _tan_ of dry land.
+In a one-crop district in which there was work for only a part of the
+year this area was obviously insufficient and there was not enough dry
+land for mulberries. Then taxation was now 2-1/2 yen per bale of rice
+(_hyō_). A third of the rice went in rent.
+
+I tried to find out what the _oaza_ might be spending on religion. The
+Shinto priest seemed to get 5 sen a month per family, which as there
+are eighty families would be 48 yen yearly. The Buddhist priest had
+land attached to his temple and money was given him at burials and at
+the _Bon_ season. The _oaza_ might spend 100 yen a year to send five
+pilgrims as far away as Yamagata, on the other side of Japan. The
+priests did not seem to count for much. "Their only concern with the
+public," I was informed, "is to be succoured by it. They are living
+very painfully. The Buddhist priests have to send money to their sect
+at Kyoto." In one of my strolls I passed the Shinto priest carrying a
+rice basket and looking, as my companion said, "just like any other
+man." At a shrine I saw a number of bowls hung up. A hole cut in the
+bottom of each seemed a pathetic symbol of need, material or
+spiritual.
+
+The keeper of the teahouse in the _oaza_ had been given a small sum by
+our host to take himself off, but in the village of which the _oaza_
+formed a part there were two teahouses, where ten times as much was
+spent as was laid out on religion. No one had ever heard of a case of
+illegitimacy in the _oaza_ but there had been in the twelve months
+three cases which pointed to abortion. It was five years since there
+had been an arrest. The young men's association helped twice a year
+families whose boys had been conscripted.
+
+According to what I was told in various quarters, some landowners in
+Chiba did a certain amount of public work but most devoted themselves
+to indoor trivialities. The fact that two banks had recently broken at
+the next town, one for a quarter of a million yen, and that a
+landowner had lost a total of 30,000 yen in these smashes, seemed to
+show that there was a certain amount of money somewhere in the
+district. No one appeared to "waste time on politics." In ten years
+"there had been one or two politicians," but "one member of Parliament
+set a wholesome example by losing a great deal of money in politics."
+As to local politics, election to the prefectural assembly seemed to
+cost about 500 yen. Membership of the village assembly might mean "a
+cup of _saké_ apiece to the electors."
+
+I was assured that this hamlet was above the economic level of the
+county. The belief was expressed that it could maintain that position
+for three or four years. "I do not feel so much anxiety about the
+present condition of the people," my host said; "they are passive
+enough: but as to the future it is a difficult and almost insoluble
+question."
+
+"The condition of our rural life is the most difficult question in
+Japan," said a fellow guest.
+
+In one of the farmers' houses a girl, with the assistance of a
+younger brother, was weaving rough matting for baling up artificial
+manure. Near them two Minorcas were laying in open boxes. In this
+family there were seven children, "three or four of whom can work."
+The hired land was 8 _tan_ of paddy and 2-1/2 of dry. There was
+nothing to the good at the end of the year. Indeed rice had had to be
+borrowed from the landlord. The family was therefore working merely to
+keep itself alive. But it looked cheerful enough. Looking cheerful is,
+however, a Japanese habit. The conditions of life here were what many
+Westerners would consider intolerable. But it was not Westerners but
+Orientals who were concerned, and what one had to try to guess was how
+far the conditions were satisfactory to Eastern imaginations and
+requirements. The people at every house I visited--as it happened to
+be a holiday the mending of clothing and implements seemed to be in
+order--were plainly getting enjoyment from the warm sunshine.
+Undoubtedly the long spells of sunshine in the comparatively idle
+period of the year make hard conditions of life more endurable.
+
+In a very small house which was little more than a shelter, the father
+and mother of a tenant were living. It is not uncommon for old
+peasants to build a dwelling for themselves when they get nearly past
+work, or sometimes after the eldest son marries.
+
+I found a 1-_chō_ peasant proprietor playing _go_ and rather the worse
+for saké, though it was early in the morning. A 3-_chō_ proprietor was
+living in a good-sized house which had a courtyard and an imposing
+gateway.
+
+On the thatch of one house I noticed a small straw horse perhaps two
+feet long. On July 7 such a horse is taken by young people to the
+hills, where a bale of grass is tied on its back. On the reappearance
+of the figure at the house, dishes of the ceremonial red rice and of
+the ordinary food of the family are set before it. "The offering of
+other than horse food indicates," it was explained, "that the desire
+is to keep the straw animal as a little deity." Finally the horse is
+flung on the roof.
+
+I went some distance to visit an _oaza_ of twenty families. It was
+described to me as "well off and peaceful." Alas, one peasant
+proprietor had gone to Tokyo, where he had made money, and on his
+return had built his second son a house with Tokyo labour instead of
+with the labour of his neighbours. So the _oaza_ was "excited with
+bitter inward animosity." Like our own hamlets, these _oaza_ in the
+sunshine, seemingly so peaceful, whisper nothing to townsfolk of their
+bickerings and feuds.
+
+One of the thatched mud houses I came to was at once a primitive
+co-operative sale-and-purchase society and the clubhouse of the old
+people of the _oaza_. The rent the old folk received from the society
+was enough to maintain the building. The oldsters gather from time to
+time in order to eat, drink and make merry with gossip and dancing.
+Dancing is a possibility for old people because it is swaying, sliding
+and attitudinising, with an occasional stamp of the foot, rather than
+hopping and whirling. One of the best amateur dances I have seen was
+performed by a grandsire. Such clubhouses, places for the comfort of
+the ageing and aged, are found in many villages. Young people are not
+admitted. The subscription to this particular clubhouse was 2 yen and
+3 _sho_ of saké on joining and 2 yen a year.
+
+As we went on our way there was pointed out to me a house the owner of
+which had sold half a _tan_ of land for 120 yen and was drinking
+steadily. He had tried to make money by opening an open-air village
+theatre which owing to rain had been a failure.
+
+I visited an _oaza_ where all the land belonged to the man I called
+upon. He assured me that most of his tenants "made ends meet." The
+remainder had a deficiency at the end of the year due to "lack of will
+to save" and to their "lack of capital which caused them to pay
+interest to manure dealers." A co-operative society had just been
+started.
+
+In looking at a map of the village to which some of these _oaza_
+belonged I noticed many holdings tinted a special colour. These were
+called "jump land." They consisted of land subdued from the wild by
+strangers. The properties were regarded as belonging to the _oaza_ in
+which their cultivators lived.
+
+I walked through a bit of woodland which had formerly been held in
+common and had been divided up, amid felicitations no doubt, at the
+rate of half a tan each to every family. But the well-to-do people
+soon got hold of their poorer neighbours' portions.
+
+In a roughish tract I came on burial grounds. One portion was set
+apart for the eight families which recognised the chief landlord as
+their head. The graves of lowlier folk seemed to occur anywhere. Each
+grave was covered by a pyramidal mound of sandy earth with a piece of
+twig stuck in it. Sometimes a tree had been planted and had grown. A
+child's grave had some tiny bowls of food and a clay doll before a
+little headstone. By way of shelter for these offerings there was hung
+on the headstone a peasant's wide straw hat. A large beehive-shaped
+bamboo basket over another grave was a reminder of the time when a
+grave needed such protection in order to save the body from wild
+animals.
+
+I saw at a distance in the midst of paddies two tree-covered mounds, a
+large one and a small one. They looked like the grave mounds I had
+seen in China, but it was suggested that they were probably on an old
+frontier line and marked spots at which ceremonies for scaring off
+disease were performed.
+
+In one place I found the people planting plum trees in order to meet
+their communal taxation. It was reckoned that the yield of one tree
+when it came into full bearing would defray the taxes of a
+moderate-sized family.
+
+An open space in a wood was pointed out to me as the spot on which
+dead horses were formerly thrown to the dogs and birds. Nowadays
+notice was given to the Eta that a dead horse was to be cast away, and
+they came and, after skinning the animal, buried the body. Farther
+off, on the high road, I saw an 8 ft. high monument to a local steed
+that had died in Manchuria.
+
+One of my further visits to Chiba was in the spring. The paddies,
+which had been fallow since November, were under water; but much of
+the stubble had been turned over with the long-bladed mattock. The
+seed beds from which the rice is transplanted to the paddies were a
+vivid green. On the high ground I saw good clean crops of barley and
+wheat, beans and peas, on soil of very moderate quality.
+
+The name of Funabashi at a station reminded me of a Japanese friend
+having told me that it was "famous for a shrine and a very immoral
+place." But I afterwards heard that the keeper of that shrine, "acting
+from conscientious motives, gave up his lucrative post and died a poor
+man." It is said of one of the most sacred places in Japan that it is
+also the "most immoral." Kyoto which contains nine hundred shrines is
+also supposed to harbour several thousand women of bad character.
+
+I passed a place where 25,000 Russian prisoners had been detained.
+There was an old peasant there who told his son that he could not
+understand why so many Japanese went abroad at such great cost to see
+the different peoples of the world. If they would only stay at home,
+he said, they would see them all in turn, for first there had been the
+Chinese prisoners, then the Russians and now there were the Germans.
+
+In the uplands it was peaceful and restful to walk through the shady
+lanes between the tree-studded homesteads or along the road passing
+between plots of mulberry, tea, vegetables or grain, cultivated with
+the care given to plants in a garden. In the herbage by the roadside,
+but not among the crops I need hardly say, I noticed dandelions, sow
+thistles, Scots thistles, plantains and some other familiar weeds.
+
+In the paddies some men wore only a narrow band of red cotton between
+their legs joined to a waist string, which, though convenient wear in
+paddies, was comically conspicuous. I recall a friend's story of a
+little foreign girl of seven who stayed with her mother in a Japanese
+hamlet and struck up a friendship with a kindly old peasant. One hot
+summer day the child came home carrying all her scanty garments over
+her arm, and covered with mud to the waist. In answer to her mother's
+enquiries the child said, "Well, mother, Ito San has all his clothes
+off, and I could not go into the paddy to help him with mine on."
+
+I visited an elementary school which was little more than a shed. The
+roofing was of bark and the paper-covered window shutters were of the
+roughest. It said much for the stamina of the children that they could
+sit there in bleak weather. An attempt had been made to shut off the
+classes from one another by pieces of thin cotton sheeting fastened to
+a string. But such essential furniture, from a hygienic point of view,
+as benches with backs had been provided, for it is considered by the
+national educational authorities that kneeling in the Japanese manner
+is inimical to physical development. I noticed, also, that when the
+children sang they had been taught to place their hands on their hips
+in order that their chests might benefit from the vocal exercise. The
+earnestness and kindliness of the men and women teachers were evident.
+All the teachers came to school bare-foot on _geta_.[210]
+
+The sea was not far off and we went to the beach where there was
+nothing between us and America. My companion and I were carried over
+shallows on the backs of fishermen, wonderful bronze-coloured figures.
+Above high-water mark heaps of small fish were drying. They were to be
+turned into oil and fish-waste manure. I saw an earthenware vase with
+a hole in the bottom like a flowerpot and found that it was used, with
+a rope attached to the rim, for catching octopus. When the octopus
+comes across such a vase on the sea bottom he regards it as a shelter
+constructed on exactly the right principles and takes up his abode
+therein. He is easily captured, for he refuses to let go his vase when
+it is brought to the surface. Indeed the only way to dislodge him is
+to pour hot water through the hole in the bottom of his upturned
+tenement.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[203] The Japanese firepot, which is made of wood or porcelain as well
+as metal, contains pieces of charcoal smouldering in wood ash.
+
+[204] I saw poultry of the table breeds which we call Indian Game or
+Malay; the Japanese call them Siamese.
+
+[205] See Appendix LVIII.
+
+[206] In 1918 carp was produced to the value of a million and a half
+yen and eels to the value of nearly a million.
+
+[207] See Appendix LIX.
+
+[208] See Appendix LX.
+
+[209] To cite a word already used in these pages, there are half a
+dozen words spelt _ko_ and as many as fourteen spelt _kō_, but all
+have a different ideograph. When the prolongation of the educational
+course by the ideographs is dwelt on, it is wholesome for us to
+remember Professor Gilbert Murray's declaration that "English spelling
+entails a loss of one year in the child's school time." Other
+authorities have considered the loss to be much more.
+
+[210] For statistics of stamina, heights and weights of children, see
+Appendix LXI.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE HUSBANDMAN, THE WRESTLER AND THE CARPENTER
+
+(SAITAMA, GUMMA AND TOKYO)
+
+We are here to search the wounds of the realm, not to skim them
+over.--BACON
+
+
+One day in the third week of October when the roads were sprinkled
+with fallen leaves I made an excursion into the Kwanto plain and
+passed from the prefecture of Tokyo into that of Saitama.[211] The
+weather now made it necessary for Japanese to wear double kimonos.
+During the middle of the day, however, I was glad to walk with my
+jacket over my arm, and many little boys and girls were running about
+naked. The region visited had a naturally well-drained dark soil,
+composed of river silt, of volcanic dust and of humus from buried
+vegetation, and it went down to a depth beyond the need of the longest
+_daikon_ (giant radish). Sweet potatoes and taro were still on the
+ground, and large areas, worked to a perfect tilth, had been sown or
+were in course of preparation for winter wheat and barley; but the
+most conspicuous crop was _daikon_. There were miles and miles of it
+at all sorts of stages from newly transplanted rows to roots ready for
+pulling. There is _daikon_ production up to the value of about a
+million yen. In addition to the roots sent into Tokyo, there is a
+large export trade in _daikon_ salted in casks.
+
+I came into a district where there was a system of alternate grain and
+wood crops. The rotation was barley and wheat for three or four years,
+then fuel wood for about fifteen. The tendency was to lengthen the
+corn period in the rotation.
+
+The women even as near Tokyo as this wore blue cotton trousers like
+the men. One farm-house I entered was a century old but it had not
+been more than forty years on its present site. It had been
+transported three miles. I was once more impressed by the low standard
+of living. If by this time I had not been getting to know something of
+the ways of the farmers I should have found it difficult to credit the
+fact that a household I visited was worth ten thousand yen.
+
+Sweet potatoes are here much the most important crop. They were
+bringing the farmer in Tokyo a little over a yen the 82 lbs. bale. The
+consumer was paying double that. Not a few of the farmers were
+cultivating as much as 5 _chō_ or even 8 _chō_, for there was little
+paddy. Even then, I was told, "it's a very hard life for a third of
+the farmers." The reason was that there was no remunerative winter
+employment.
+
+Before the Buddhist temple, where there was preaching twice a year,
+were rows of little stone figures, many of which had lost their heads.
+The heads were in much demand among gamblers who value them as
+mascots. Among some mulberry plots belonging to different owners I saw
+a little wooden shrine, evidently for the general good. It was there,
+it was explained, "not because of belief but of custom." The evening
+was drawing in and Fuji showed itself blue and mystical above the dark
+greenery of the country. As I gazed a sweet-sounding gong was struck
+thrice in the temple. Three times a day there is heard this summons to
+other thoughts than those of the common task.
+
+[Illustration: INSIDE THE "SHOJI."]
+
+[Illustration: AUTOMATIC RICE POLISHER.]
+
+[Illustration: THE AUTHOR (AND THE KODAK HOLDER) IN THE CRATER OF A
+VOLCANO.]
+
+My companion entered into conversation with a decent middle-aged
+pedestrian, neatly but poorly dressed, and found that he was a man who
+had formerly pulled his _kuruma_ in Tokyo. The man had found the work
+of a _kurumaya_ too much for him and had withdrawn to his village to
+open a tiny shop. But he had been taken ill and had been removed to
+hospital. When he came out he found that his wife was in poverty and
+that his eldest son had been summoned to serve in the army. Now his
+wife had become ill and he was on his way to a distant relative to ask
+him to take charge of a small child and to help him with a little
+money to start some petty business. My companion gave him a yen and
+deplored the fact that poor people should fail to take advantage of
+the law releasing from service a son required for the support of a
+parent. They failed occasionally to find friends to represent their
+case to the authorities.
+
+[Illustration: A WAYSIDE MONUMENT.]
+
+[Illustration: THE GIANT RADISH OR "DAIKON," WHICH IS USED AS A
+PICKLE.]
+
+While waiting at the station we talked with another old man. He had
+come to see his daughter whose husband had been called up for two
+years' service. She was living of course with her parents-in-law. He
+said that his daughter would have no difficulty in keeping the farm
+going during the young man's absence, but his being away was "a great
+loss."
+
+The old man, who squatted at our feet as he spoke, went on to tell us
+about a young man of his village who had served his term in the navy
+but thought of remaining for another term. "Gran'fer" thought it a
+good opening for him; he would not only get his living and clothes
+but--and this is characteristic--"see the world and send back
+interesting letters." The ancient was specially interested in the
+sailor, he said, because his wife had "given milk" to the adventurer
+when an infant.
+
+It is difficult to enter a village which has not its pillar or its
+slab to the memory of a youth or youths who perished in the Russian or
+Chinese wars.[212] But in the severe struggle with Russia the villages
+did more than give their sons and build memorials to them when they
+were killed. They tried, in the words of an official circular of that
+time, "to preserve the spirit of independence in the hearts of the
+relieved and to avoid the abuses of giving out ready money." There was
+the secret ploughing society of the young men of a village in Gumma
+prefecture. "Either at night or when nobody knew these young men went
+out and ploughed for those who were at the front." In one prefecture
+the school children helped in working soldiers' farms. In villages in
+Osaka and Hyogo prefectures there was given to soldiers' families the
+monopoly of selling _tofu_, matches and other articles. Some of the
+societies which laboured in war time were the Women's One Heart
+Society, the Women's Chivalrous Society, the National Backing Society
+and the Nursing Place of Young Children of those Serving at the Front.
+
+In the train we talked of the hardiness induced by not being the slave
+of clothing. When it rains _kuruma_ men and workmen habitually roll up
+their kimonos round their loins, or if they are wearing trousers, take
+them off.[213] Of course no Japanese believes in catching cold through
+getting his feet wet. This is a condition which is continually
+experienced, for the cotton _tabi_ are wet through at every shower.
+Some years back it was not uncommon in walking along the sea-beach at
+night to find fishermen sleeping out on the sand. An old man told me
+that it used to be the custom in his sea-shore hamlet for all members
+of a family to sleep on the beach except fathers, mothers and infants.
+
+On my return from the country I found myself in a company of earnest
+rural reformers who were discussing a plan of State colonisation for
+the inhabitants of some villages where everything had been lost in a
+volcanic eruption. Families had been given a tract of forest land, 15
+yen for a cottage, 45 yen for tools and implements and the cost of
+food for ten months (reckoned at 8 sen per adult and 7 sen per child
+per day). During the evening I was shown the figure of a goddess of
+farming venerated by the afflicted folk. The deity was represented
+standing on bales of rice, with a bowl of rice in her left hand and a
+big serving spoon in her right.
+
+The gathering discussed the question of rural morality. As to the
+relations of the young men and women of the villages, to which there
+has necessarily been frequent references in these pages, the reader
+must always bear in mind the way in which the sexes are normally kept
+apart under the influence of tradition. In nothing does this Japanese
+countryside differ more noticeably from our own than in the fact that
+joyous young couples are never seen arming each other along the road
+of an evening. Thousands of allusions in our rural songs and poetry,
+innumerable scenes in our genre pictures, speak of blissful hours of
+which Japan gives no sign. There is no courting; there are in the
+public view no "random fits of dallin'." An unmarried young man and
+young woman do not walk and talk together. A young man and woman who
+were together of an evening would be suspected of immorality. Even
+when married they would not think of linking arms on the road. I was a
+beholder of a family reunion at a railway station in which a young
+wife met her young husband returned from abroad. There were merely
+repeated bows and many smiles. The view taken of kissing in Japan is
+shown by the fact that an issue of a Tokyo periodical was prohibited
+by the police because it contained an allusion to it. We are helped to
+understand the Japanese standpoint a little if we remember how
+repugnant to English and American ideas is the Continental custom of
+men kissing one another. Kissing is understood by the Japanese to be a
+sexual act, as is shown by their word for it.
+
+Early in November in the neighbourhood of Tokyo, where three crops are
+taken in the year and sometimes four or five, I found between the rows
+of growing winter barley two lines of green stuff which would be
+cleared off as the barley rose. The barley was sown in clumps of two
+dozen or even thirty plants, each clump being about a foot apart, and
+liberally treated with liquid manure. In Saitama 100 bushels per acre
+has been produced by a good farmer. The clump method of sowing is
+believed to afford greater protection against the weather. (Outside
+the volcanic-soil area ordinary sowing in rows is common.) The
+volcanic soil, as one sees in spots where excavations have been made,
+is originally light yellow. The humus introduced by the liberal
+applications of manure has made it black.
+
+I came upon a hollow in some low hills, studded with trees and
+overlooking Tokyo Bay, which had been secured for the building of an
+elaborate series of temples at a cost of three million yen. Acres of
+grounds were being laid out with genius. The buildings were of that
+beautiful simplicity which marks the edifices of the Zen sect. The
+construction was in the hands of some of the cleverest master
+craftsmen in Japan. The work was to be spread over four years. A great
+hoarding displayed thousands of wooden tablets bearing the names and
+the amounts of the subscriptions of the faithful. In one of the
+completed temples a kindly priest was preaching. He added to the force
+of his gestures by the use of a fan. He was being attentively listened
+to by an intelligent-looking congregation. I caught the injunction
+that in the attainment of goodness aspiration was little worth without
+will.
+
+The method of announcing subscriptions on hoardings was also adopted
+outside the new primary school near by. The subscriptions were from a
+hundred yen to one yen. The charge to scholars at this school, I
+found, was 10 sen per month during the first compulsory six years and
+30 sen during the next two years.
+
+Just after Christmas I walked again into the country. There were miles
+of dreary brown paddies with the stubble in puddles. On the non-paddy
+land there was the refreshing green of young corn which seemed greatly
+to enjoy being treated as a garden plant in a deep exquisitely worked
+soil with never a weed in an acre. But children were kept from school
+because their parents could not get along without their help. Many of
+the school teachers seemed as poor as the farmers. As I passed the
+farm-houses in the evening they seemed bleak and uninviting. In the
+fire hole[214] of every house, however, there was a generous blaze and
+the bath tub out-of-doors was steaming for the customary evening hot
+dip in the opening.
+
+In my host's house I noticed an old painting of a forked _daikon_.
+Such malformed roots used to be presented to shrines by women desirous
+of having children.
+
+In the office of one village I visited I was permitted to examine the
+dossiers of some of the inhabitants. Among a host of other particulars
+about a certain person's origin and condition I read that he was a
+minor when his father died, that such and such a person acted as his
+guardian, that the guardianship ended on such and such a date, and
+that his widowed mother had a child nine years after her husband's
+death.
+
+In not a few places I found that the tiny shrines of hamlets (_aza_)
+had been taken away and grouped together at a communal shrine with the
+notion of promoting local solidarity. At one such combination of
+shrines I saw notice boards intimating that "tramps, pedlars,
+wandering priests and other carriers of subscription lists and
+proselytisers" were not received in the village. It was explained that
+a community was sometimes all of one faith: "therefore it does not
+want to be disturbed by tactless preachers of other beliefs."
+
+At an inn there was a middle-aged widow who served there as waitress
+in the summer but in the winter returned to Tokyo, where she employed
+a number of girls in making _haori_ tassels. (She gave them board and
+lodging and clothes for two years, and, after that period,
+wages.[215]) Remembering what I had written down about courting, I
+asked for her mature judgment on our rural custom of "walking out."
+She was amused, but, in that way the Japanese have of trying to look
+at a Western custom on its merits, she said, after consideration, that
+there was much to be said for the plan. "In Japan," she declared, "you
+cannot know a husband's character until you are married. On the whole,
+I wish I had been a man." In order to catch our train we had to leave
+this inn the moment our meal was finished, although the widow quoted
+to us the adage, "Rest after a meal even if your parents are dead."
+
+On a morning in May I went into the country to visit a friend who was
+taking a holiday in a ramshackle inn 4,000 ft. up Mount Akagi. I
+continually heard the note of the _kakkō_ (cuckoo). On the higher
+parts of the mountain there were azaleas at every yard, some quite
+small but others 12 or even 15 ft. high. Many had been grazed by
+cattle. Big cryptomeria were plentiful part of the way up, but at the
+top there were no trees but diminutive oaks, birches and pines,
+stunted and lichen covered, the topmost branches broken off by the
+terrific blasts which from time to time sweep along the top of the
+extinct volcano.
+
+One of the products of rural Japan is the wrestler. _Sumo_, which is
+going on in every school and college of the country, exhibits its
+perfect flower twice a year in the January and May ten-days-long
+tournaments in the capital. The immense rotunda of the wrestlers'
+association suggests a rather rickety Albert Hall and holds 13,000
+people.[216] On the day I went in I paid 2 yen and had only standing
+room. Everybody knows the more than Herculean proportions of the
+wrestlers in comparison with the rest of their countrymen. The
+rigorous training, Gargantuan feeding and somewhat severe discipline
+of the wrestlers enable them to grow beyond the average stature and to
+a girth, protected by enormously developed abdominal muscles, which
+reinforces strength with great weight.[217]
+
+I had often the opportunity at a railway station or in a train to
+witness the easy carriage and magnificent pride of these massive,
+good-tempered men. There is not in the world, probably, a more
+remarkable illustration than they afford of what superior physical
+training and superior feeding can do. At first sight, indeed, these
+gigantic creatures seem to belong to a different race. It is no wonder
+that they should be so commonly proteges of the rich and
+distinguished. When an eminent wrestler retired in the year in which I
+first saw a good wrestling bout the ceremony of cutting his hair--for,
+like Samson, the wrestler wears his hair long--was performed by a
+personage who combined the dignities of an admiral and a peer. There
+is nothing of the bruiser in the looks of the smooth-faced wrestlers.
+Many, however, are the bruises to their bodies and to their
+self-esteem which they receive in their disciplinary progress from the
+contests of their native villages through all the grades of their
+profession to the highest rank. Their sexual morality is commonly of
+the lowest.
+
+In my own hamlet at home in England I have seen the shoemaker, tailor
+and carpenter successively pass away; the only craftsman left is the
+smith. In Japan the hereditary craftsman survives for a while. I
+watched in my house one day the labours of such a worker. He was not
+arrayed in a Sunday suit fallen to the greasy bagginess of everyday
+wear, topped by a soiled collar. He appeared in a blue cotton
+jacket-length kimono and tight-fitting trousers of the same stuff, and
+both garments, which were washed at least once a week, were admirably
+fitted to their wearer's work. Almost the same rig was worn by our own
+medieval and pre-medieval workmen. The carpenter had on the back of
+his coat the name of his master or guild in decorative Chinese
+characters in white. There are nowadays in the cities many inferior
+workers, but all the men who came to my house worked with rapidity and
+concentration, hardly ever lifting their eyes from their jobs. The
+dexterity of the Japanese workman is seldom exaggerated. To his
+dexterity he adds the considerable advantage of having more than two
+hands, for he uses his feet together or singly. His supple big toes
+are a great possession. We have lost the use of ours, but the Japanese
+artisan, accustomed from his youth to _tabi_ with a special division
+for the big toe, and to _geta_, which can be well managed only when
+the big toe is lissom, uses his toes as naturally as a monkey, with
+his paws and mouth full of nuts, gives a few to his feet to hold. The
+first sight of a foot holding a tool is uncanny.
+
+The pitiful thing is that a modest, polite, cheerful, industrious,
+skilful, and in the best sense of the word artistic hereditary
+craftsmanship is proving only too easy a prey to the new industrial
+system. It is a sad reflection that the country which, owing to her
+long period of seclusion, had the opportunity of applying to all the
+things of common life so remarkable a skill and artistry, should be so
+little conscious of the pace at which her industrial rake's progress
+is proceeding, so insensible to the degree to which she is prodigally
+sacrificing that which, when it is lost to her, can never be
+recovered. It is no doubt true that when our own handicrafts were
+dying we also were insensitive. But because the Middle Ages in England
+encountered the industrial system gradually we suffered our loss more
+slowly than Japan is doing. Because, too, we never had in our
+bustling history the long periods of immunity from home and foreign
+strife by which Japanese craftsmanship profited so wonderfully, we may
+not have had such large stores of precious skill and taste to squander
+as New Japan, the spendthrift of Old Japan's riches, is unthinkingly
+casting away.
+
+It is at Christmas at home that we have in the Christmas tree our
+reminder of the country. It is on New Year's Day that in Japan a pine
+tree is set up on either side of the front gate, but there are three
+bamboos with it, and the four trunks are all beautifully bound
+together with rope. If the ground be too hard for the trees to be
+stuck in the ground, they are kept upright by having a dozen heavy
+pieces of wood, not unlike fire logs, neatly bound round them. The
+pines may be about 10 ft. high, the bamboo about 15 ft. To the trees
+are affixed the white paper _gohei_. Over the doorway itself is an
+arrangement of straw, an orange, a lobster, dried cuttlefish and more
+_gohei_. A less expensive display consists of a sprig of pine and
+bamboo. Poor people have to be content with a yard-high pine branch
+with a French nail through it at either side of their doorway. I have
+been ruralist enough to harbour thoughts of the extent to which the
+woods are raided for all this New Year forestry. Some prefectures, in
+the sincerity of their devotion to afforestation, forbid the New Year
+destruction of pine trees.
+
+I remember the gay and elaborate dressing of the horses during the New
+Year holidays. I saw one driver of a wagon who was not content with
+tying streamers on every part of his horse where streamers could be
+tied: he had also decorated himself, even to the extent of having had
+his head cropped to a special pattern, tracts of hair and bare scalp
+alternating.
+
+It was pleasant to learn that a fine chrysanthemum show arranged in an
+open space in Tokyo was free to the public. Some plants, by means of
+grafting, bore flowers of half a dozen different varieties. Several
+plants had been wondrously trained into the form of _kuruma_, etc. Not
+a few of the varieties exhibited were, according to our ideas,
+atrocious in colouring, but many were beautiful and all were marvels
+of cultivation. Even greater manipulative and horticultural skill was
+represented in the chrysanthemums I saw at the Imperial garden party.
+A chief of a department of the Ministry of Agriculture told me that
+from a chrysanthemum growing in the ground it was possible to have a
+thousand blooms.
+
+In a Japanese room the timber upright alongside the _tokonoma_ is
+always a tree trunk in the rough. If it be cherry it has its bark on.
+The contrast with the finely finished wood of the rest of the room is
+arresting. It is said that the use of the unplaned upright is not more
+than three or four hundred years old and that it had its origin in
+_Cha-no-yu_ affectations of simplicity.
+
+I was visited one evening by an agricultural official who had returned
+from a visit to Great Britain. He spoke of the "lonelyism" of our best
+hotels. In a Japanese hotel of the same class one's room is so simple
+and the view of the garden is so refreshing that, with the beautiful
+flower arrangement indoors, the frequent change of _kakemono_, the
+serving of one's meals in a different set of lacquer and porcelain
+each day and the willing and smiling service always within the call of
+a hand clap, there comes a sense of restfulness and peace. The
+drawback which the Western man experiences is the lack of any means of
+resting his back but by lying down and the inability to read for long
+while resting an elbow on an arm rest which is too low for him.[218] A
+Japanese often reads kneeling before a table.
+
+Here I am reminded to say that the development of the desire for books
+and newspapers in the rural districts is a noticeable thing, if only
+because it is new. It is not so long ago that reading was considered
+to be an occupation for old men and women and for children. The
+samurai had few books and the farmers fewer still. But the idea of
+combining cultivation and culture was not unknown. I have heard a
+rural student humbly quote the old saying, _Sei-kō U-doku_
+(literally, "Fine weather--farming--Rainy weather--reading").
+
+I have a rural note of one of my visits to the _Nō_.[219] One farce
+brought on an inferior priest of a sect which is now extinct but
+surely deserves to be remembered for its encouragement of mountain
+climbing. This "mountain climber," as he was called, was hungry and
+climbed a farmer's tree in order to steal persimmons. (The actor got
+on a stool, obligingly steadied by a supposedly invisible attendant,
+and pretended to clamber up a corner post of the stage.) While he was
+eating the persimmons he was discovered by their owner. The farmer was
+a man of humour and said that he thought that "that must be a crow in
+the tree." So the poor priest tried to caw. "No," said the farmer, "it
+is surely a monkey." So the priest began to scratch after the manner
+of monkeys. "But perhaps," the farmer went on, "it is really a kite."
+The priest flapped his arms--and fell. The farmer thought that he had
+the priest at his mercy. But the priest, rubbing his beads together,
+put a spell on him and escaped. The word _Nō_ is written with an
+ideograph which means ability, but _Nō_ also stands for
+agriculture.[220]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[211] The Kwanto plain (73 by 96 miles) includes most of Tokyo and
+Saitama prefecture, and also the larger part of Kanagawa and Chiba and
+parts of Ibaraki, Gumma and Tochigi.
+
+[212] The characters on these slabs are beautifully written. They have
+usually been penned by distinguished men.
+
+[213] The Japanese man wears below his kimono or trousers a pair of
+bathing shorts. Peasants frequently wear in the fields nothing but a
+little cotton bag and string.
+
+[214] Poor households ordinarily use, instead of movable _hibachi_, a
+big square box in an opening in the floor and resting on the earth.
+
+[215] When I was in Tokyo, tradesmen's messenger boys received only
+their food, lodging and clothing and an occasional present, with help
+no doubt in starting a linked business when they were out of their
+time. Now such youths, as a development of the labour movement, are on
+a wage basis and receive 20 yen a month.
+
+[216] The place has since been burnt down. A bigger building has been
+erected.
+
+[217] See Appendix LXII.
+
+[218] There is also the occasional whiff of the _benjo_; but, as an
+agricultural expert said, "It is not a bad thing that a people which
+is increasingly under the influence of industrialism should be
+compelled to give a thought to agriculture." There are European
+countries famous for their farming whose sanitary experts are
+evidently similarly minded.
+
+[219] The fact that Dr. Waley's scholarly book is the third work on
+the _Nō_ to be published in England in recent years is evidence that a
+knowledge of a form of lyrical drama of rare artistry is gradually
+extending in the West.
+
+[220] Hence the names of the two national agricultural organisations,
+Teikoku Nōkai, that is the Imperial Agricultural Society, and Dai
+Nippon Nōkai, that is the Great Japan Agricultural Society.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+"THEY FEEL THE MERCY OF THE SUN"
+
+(GUMMA, KANAGAWA AND CHIBA)
+
+I find the consolation of life in things with which Governments cannot
+interfere, in the light and beauty the earth puts forth for her children.
+If the universe has any meaning, it exists for the purposes of soul.--Æ
+
+
+One December night there walked into my house a professor of
+agricultural politics, clad in tweeds and an overcoat, and with him a
+man who wore only a cotton kimono and a single under-garment. The
+sunburnt forehead of this man showed that he was not in the habit of
+wearing a hat. There is a smiling Japanese face which to many
+foreigners is merely irritating. It is not less irritating when, as
+often happens, it displays bad teeth ostentatiously gold-stopped. This
+man's smile was sincere and he had beautiful teeth. His hands were
+nervous and thin, his bearing was natural and his voice gentle. Here,
+evidently, was an altruist, perhaps a zealot, probably a celibate. He
+was introduced as a rural religionist from Gumma prefecture set on
+reforming his countrymen. It is important to know the strength of the
+reforming power which Japan is itself generating: here was a man who
+for eight years had lived a life of poverty in remote regions and had
+shaped his life by three heroes, "St. Francis, Tolstoy and Kropotkin."
+He believed that the way to influence people was "to work with them."
+He lived on his dole as a junior teacher in an elementary school. His
+food, which he cooked himself, was chiefly rice and _miso_. He had
+been a vegetarian for ten years. He was twenty-nine.
+
+He said that as far as the people of his village--largely peasant
+proprietors who hired additional land--were concerned, "It is happy
+for them if they end the year without debt." I asked how the men in
+the village who owned land but did not work it spent their time. The
+reply was: "They are chattering of many things, very trivial things,
+and they disturb the village. They drink too much and they have
+concubines or women elsewhere."
+
+"If an ordinary peasant went to the next town to see women there," the
+speaker continued, "young men of the village would go and give him a
+good knock. In former times 'waitresses' were highly spoken of in the
+village, but not now. There are some young men who may go at night to
+a house where there are young girls in the family and open the door.
+Sometimes they bring cucumbers. Cucumbers are symbols. Some do this
+out of fun and some sincerely to express their feelings. If the young
+men who do such a thing do it out of fun they are given a good knock
+by members of that house when discovered. If they are sincere the
+members of the family will smile. There are in our village of 6,000
+inhabitants only four illegitimate children."
+
+As to the influences exerted for the betterment of the people the
+follower of St. Francis was convinced that "when Buddhist influence,
+Shintoism, Confucianism and the good customs of our race are all mixed
+together so that you cannot discern one from the other we have some
+living power." His own religion was "that of St. Francis combined with
+Buddhism."
+
+Speaking generally of rural people my visitor said: "They are falling
+into miserable conditions, are in effect spending what was accumulated
+by their ancestors. Their houses are not so practical and cost more.
+They think they live better but their physical condition is not
+better. The number who cannot earn much is increasing." I was told of
+a growing habit among village boys of running off to Tokyo without
+their parents' permission. And bands of girls came to the district to
+help in the silk-worm season "often without their parents' approval."
+
+Many villagers consulted my visitor on all sorts of subjects until he
+had almost no leisure. Some wanted counsel about the future of their
+children, some desired advice about the family debt, some wanted to
+know how to put an end to quarrels and some asked "how a man will be
+able to be easy-minded." The ordinary result of the primary school
+system was "a mass of many informations in young brains and they
+cannot tell wisdom from knowledge. The result is that they are
+discontented with their hard lot. They grow up wishing to rob each
+other within the bounds of the law. They want to live comfortably
+without hard work. Good customs which were the crystallisation of the
+experience of our race are dying away."
+
+My visitor had met an old woman on the road clad miserably. She earned
+as a labourer on a farm, beside her board and lodging, 25 sen daily.
+Of this sum she handed to a fellow-villager whom she trusted 20 sen.
+He gave away many clothes to the poor and her contribution was used
+with the money he expended. "If," said she, "one shall give to God a
+small thing in darkness then it is accepted to its full value, but, if
+it be known, it is accepted only at a small value." She was "content
+and quite happy."
+
+This woman and many others in the district had a primitive kind of
+religion. They observed the days called "waiting for the sun" and
+"waiting for the moon." "The same-minded people gather. The one most
+deeply experienced tells something to those assembled and they begin
+to be imbued with the same spirit. It is some kind of transformed
+worship of the sun god. They feel the mercy of the sun. They do not
+worship the heavenly bodies but as the symbol of the merciful
+universe. These people take meals together several times in a year.
+They talk not only on spiritual but on common things and about the
+news in the papers. It may seem to a stranger that what they talk is
+foolish, but they have a wonderful power to attract the essential out
+of those trifles."
+
+"The fundamental power which made Japan what it is," the speaker went
+on with animation, "is not institutions and statesmen, but those
+primitive religious acts. The people strongly resembling the old woman
+I spoke of may be only 1 per cent., but almost all villagers are
+imbued with such religious notions and feel thankfulness, and on rare
+occasions a latent sentiment springs from their hearts. Their religion
+may be connected with Buddhism or Shintoism; it is not Buddhism or
+Shintoism, however, but a primitive belief which in its manifestation
+varies much in different villages. For example, in one village the
+good deeds of an ancient sage are told. The time when that priest
+lived and particulars about him are getting dimmer and dimmer, but his
+influence is still considerable. Though many people are worshipped in
+national and prefectural shrines the influence of those enshrined is
+small compared with the influence of a man or woman of the past who
+was not much celebrated but was thought to be good by the rustic
+people.
+
+"Think of the way in which the memory of the maid-servant Otake is
+worshipped by the peasants through one-half of Japan. That was a pious
+and illuminated person who worked very hard. As her _uta_ (poem) says,
+'Though hands and feet are very busy at work, still I can praise and
+follow God always because my mind and heart are not occupied by
+worldly things.' She ate poor food and gave her own food to beggars.
+So when a countryman wastes the bounty of nature he is still
+reprimanded by the example of that maid-servant. She is more respected
+than many great men."
+
+My visitor thought a religious revival might happen under the
+leadership of a Christian or of a Buddhist, or of a man who "united
+Buddhism and Christianity" or "developed the primitive form of faith
+among the lower people." He thought there were "already men in the
+country who might be these leaders." He said that much might happen in
+ten years. "Materialism is prevalent everywhere, but people will begin
+to feel difficulties in following their materialism. When they cannot
+go any further with it they will begin to be awakened."
+
+And then this young man who sincerely desires to do something with his
+life and has at any rate made a beginning went his way. Up and down
+Japan I met several single-hearted men not unlike him.
+
+One day I made an excursion from Tokyo and came on an extraordinary
+avenue of small wooden red painted _torii_, gimcracky things made out
+of what a carpenter would call "two by two stuff." By the time I got
+to the shrine to which the _torii_ led I must have passed a thousand
+of these erections. In one spot there was a stack of _torii_ lying on
+their sides. The shrine was in honour of the fox god and there was a
+curious story behind it. Twenty years before a man interested in the
+"development" of the district had caused it to be given out that
+foxes, the messengers of the god Inari, had been seen on this spot in
+the vicinity of a humble shrine to that divinity. The farmers were
+continually questioned about the matter. It was suggested that the god
+was manifesting his presence. In the end more and more worshippers
+came, and, with the liberal assistance of the speculator, a fine new
+shrine was erected in place of the shabby one. His hand was also seen
+in the building of a big burrow--of concrete--for the comfort of the
+god's messenger. The top of the burrow also furnished an excellent
+view of the surrounding district, and teahouses were built in the
+vicinity. Indeed in a year or two quite a village of teahouses came
+into existence. The place, which was on the sea-coast, had become a
+kind of Southend or Coney Island, and attracted thousands of visitors.
+
+A large proportion of these teahouses would have great difficulty in
+establishing a claim to respectability. Numbers of lamps which crowded
+the space before the shrine were the gifts of women of bad character
+and the inscriptions on these gifts bore the _addresses and
+profession_ of the donors. The final irony was the provision of a tram
+service for the convenience of those who wished to worship at another
+altar than that of the fox god. Although most of the visitors found
+the chief attraction of the place in the teahouses,[221] they were
+none the less devout. Every visitor to the teahouses worshipped at the
+shrine.
+
+What do those who bow their heads and throw their Coppers in the
+treasury pray for? "Well-being to my family and prosperity to my
+business" was, I was told, a common form of invocation. Even among not
+a few reasonably well educated people there is a conviction that
+prayers made at the altar of the fox god are peculiarly efficacious.
+Kanzō Uchimura, who accompanied me on this trip, improved the occasion
+by saying in his vigorous English: "You in the West have some
+difficulty, no doubt, in understanding the fierceness of the
+indignation with which Old Testament prophets denounce heathen gods.
+When you behold such an exhibition as this you may be helped to
+understand. Here is impurity under divine protection, and this place
+may fairly be called a fashionable shrine. The visitor to Japan often
+vaunts himself on being broadminded. He regards heathendom as only
+another sect and he desires to be respectful to it. But I want to show
+you that it is not a case of only another sect but often a case of
+gross and demoralising superstition and priestly countenancing of
+immorality. Heaven forbid that I should deny the beauty of the idea of
+the foxes being the messengers of divinity or that I should suggest
+that some religious feelings may not inspire and some religious
+feeling may not reward the sincere devotion of the countryman to his
+fox god, but how much does it amount to in sum?"
+
+I thought of what Uchimura had said when one day, in the course of a
+walk with his critic, Yanagi (Chapter XI), I was shown a shrine
+pitifully bedizened by the _waraji_ (straw sandals) and _ema_[222] of
+a thousand or more pilgrims who were suffering or had recovered from
+syphilis.[223]
+
+During our conversation Yanagi said: "Shintoism is not of course a
+religion at all. It draws great strength from the national instinct
+for cleanliness manifested by people living in a hot climate. The
+religion of poor people is largely custom; I complain of educated
+people not that they are sceptical but that they are not sceptical
+enough. They simply don't care. According to Mr. Uchimura, there is
+only one way to God and that is through Christianity. But there are
+many ways. A personal religion like Christianity is more effective
+than Buddhism, but it does not follow that Christianity is better than
+Buddhism. I find I get to like Mr. Uchimura more and more and his
+views less and less. It is not his theoretical Christianity but his
+courageous spirit which attracts. He is a courageous man and we have
+very great need of morally courageous men. Although Christianity is
+impossible without Christ, Buddhism is possible without Buddha. A
+variety of religions is not harmful, and we have to take note of the
+Christian temperament and the Buddhistic temperament. Orientals can
+only be appealed to by an Oriental religion. Christianity is an
+Oriental religion no doubt, but it has been Westernised. It must
+always be borne in mind that Buddhistic literature is in a special
+language and that it is difficult for most people to get a general
+view of Buddhism."
+
+In further talk the speaker said that in Japan the individual had not
+been separated from the mass. But it was difficult to exaggerate the
+swiftness of the national development. The newer Russian writers were
+"certainly as well known in England, possibly better known." As to
+Tolstoy alone, there were at least fifty books about him. But it had
+to be admitted that, generally speaking, the Japanese development
+though rapid had not gone deep. In painting there was dexterity and
+technique but few men knew where they were going. Their work was
+"surface beautiful." They had not passed the stage of Zorn.
+
+We spoke of conscription and I said that it had not escaped my
+attention that many young men showed an increasing desire to avoid
+military service. From a single person I had heard of youths who had
+escaped by looking ill--through a week's fasting--by impairing their
+eyesight by wearing strong glasses for a few weeks, by contriving to
+be examined in a fishing village where the standard of physique was
+high, or by shamming Socialist.[224] Many Japanese bear
+uncomplainingly the heavy burden of the military system. But the
+others are to be reckoned with.
+
+Said one of these to me: "We Japanese are not inherently a warlike
+people and have no desire to be militarists; but we are suffering from
+German influence not only in the army but through the middle-aged
+legal, scientific and administrative classes who were largely educated
+in Germany or influenced by German teaching. This German influence may
+have been held in check to some extent, perhaps, by the artistic
+world, which has certainly not been German, except in relation to
+music, and after all that is the best part of Germany. Many young
+people have taken their ideas largely from Russia; more from the
+United States and Great Britain. But Germany will always make her
+appeal on account of her reputation with us for system, order,
+industry, depth of knowledge, persistence and nationalism."
+
+On the family system, the study of which was more than once urged upon
+me in connection with the rural problem, this statement was made to me
+by an agricultural expert: "I will tell you the story of an official
+whose salary was that of a Governor. His father was a farmer. The
+farmer borrowed money to educate his son. When the son became an
+official he paid the money back, but on the small salaries he received
+this repayment was a strain. Then two brothers came to his house
+frequently for money, and when they received it spent it in ridiculous
+ways. This begging has gone on for nine years. My friend has to live
+not like an Excellency but like a _gunchō_. He cannot treat his wife
+and children fairly. But of the money he gives to his brothers he
+says, 'It is my family expense.'"
+
+I also heard this story: "A married B. B died without having any
+children. A next married B's sister, C. Then, because of the necessity
+of having a male heir for the maintenance of his family, and because
+he thought it was unlikely that his wife C would have children as her
+dead sister B had had none, he adopted his wife's younger brother, D.
+But the wife C did have children. Consequently, not only is A's wife
+his sister-in-law and his eldest 'son' his wife's brother, but his
+children are his eldest 'son's' nephews. The eldest of these children,
+E, is legally the younger son. He says, 'I am glad that instead of an
+uncle I have an elder brother. I am much attached to him and he is
+attached to me. I am not sorry to be younger instead of elder brother,
+for when my father dies my adopted brother will become head of the
+family and he must then bring up his younger brothers and sisters,
+manage the family fortunes, bear the family troubles and keep all the
+cousins and uncles in good humour by inviting them occasionally and at
+other times by visiting them and giving them presents.'[225]
+
+"It is obvious that our family system, for speaking in criticism of
+which officials have been dismissed from their posts, puts too much
+stress on the family and too little on the individual. The family is
+the unit of society. Any member of it is only a fraction of that unit.
+For the sake of the family every member of it must sacrifice almost
+everything.[226] Sometimes the development of the individual character
+and individual initiative is checked by the family system. An eldest
+son is often required to follow his father's calling irrespective of
+his tastes. Nowadays some eldest sons go abroad, but their departure
+attracts attention and you seldom find such a thing happening among
+farmers. The family system, by which all is subordinated to family, is
+convenient to farmers for it means increased labour and economy of
+living. Sometimes there may be two married sons living at home and
+then there is often strife. Generally speaking, the family system at
+one and the same time keeps young men from striking out in the world
+and compels their early marriage so that the helping hands to the
+family may be more numerous. The family system concentrates the
+attention on the family and not on society. There is no energy left
+for society.
+
+"Again, the family system gives too much power to relatives and leads
+to disagreeable interference. In the case of a marriage being proposed
+between family A and family B, the families related to A or B who will
+be brought into closer connection by the marriage may object. On the
+other hand, the family system has the advantage that the relatives who
+interfere may also be looked upon for help. Not a few people are all
+for maintaining the family system. But the spirit of individualism is
+entering into some families and here and there children are beginning
+to claim their rights and to act against relatives' wishes. One hears
+of farmers sending boys, even elder sons, to the towns, and for their
+equipment borrowing from the prefectural agricultural bank instead of
+spending on the development of their business."
+
+At a Christmas-day luncheon I met four students of rural problems, two
+of whom were peers, one a governor of an important prefecture, and a
+fourth a high official in the agricultural world. One man, speaking of
+the family system, said "the success of agriculture depends on it."
+"In my opinion," someone remarked, "the foundation of the family
+system is common production and common consumption, so when these
+things go there must be a gradual disappearance of the family system."
+"No," came the rejoinder, "the only enemy of the family system is
+Western influence." "Yes," the fourth speaker added, "an enemy whose
+blows have told."
+
+Someone suggested that the Japanese rural emigrant always hoped to
+return home, that is if he could return with dignity--does not the
+proverb speak of the desirability of returning home in good clothes?
+One of the company said that he had seen in Kyushu rows of
+white-washed slated houses which had been erected by returned
+emigrants. "But they were successful prostitutes. Often, however,
+these girls invest their money unwisely and have to go abroad again."
+
+Everybody at table agreed that there was in the villages a slow if
+steady slackening of "the power of the landlord, of the authorities
+and of religion," and a development of a desire and a demand for
+better conditions of life. One who proclaimed himself a conservative
+urged that changes of form were too readily confounded with changes of
+spirit. The change in thought in Japan, he said, was slow, and some
+occurrences might be easily misjudged. I said that that very day I had
+heard from my house the drone of an aeroplane prevail over the sound
+of a temple bell, happening to speak of _The Golden Bough_, I asked my
+neighbour, who had read it, if to a Japanese who got its penetrating
+view some things could ever be the same again. He answered frankly,
+"There are things in our life which are too near to criticise. Do you
+know that there are parts of Japan where folklore is still being
+made?"
+
+I was invited one evening to dinner to meet a dozen men conspicuous in
+the agricultural world. Priests were apologised for because most of
+them were "very poor men and also poorly educated." Very few had been
+even to a middle school. Many priests read Chinese scriptures aloud
+but they did not understand what they were reading.
+
+One man reported that an old farmer had said to him that paddy-field
+labour was harder than dry-land labour, but young men did not go off
+to Tokyo because of the severity of the work; they went away because
+of "the bondage of rural life."
+
+How much has the economic stress affected old convictions? How general
+and how eager is the Japanese resolution to Westernise farther? None
+of the rural sociologists had given any thought apparently to a new
+factor in the rural problem: the way in which compulsory military
+service, in taking farmers' sons to the cities as soldiers and
+bluejackets, is giving them an acquaintance with neo-Malthusianism. In
+Tokyo and other large cities certain articles are prominently
+advertised on the hoardings. It is of some importance to consider what
+will be the effect of this knowledge in competition with the national
+appreciation of large families.[227] Is it likely that an intensely
+"practical" people, which has bolted so much of European and American
+"civilisation," will be wholly uninfluenced by the Western practice of
+limitation of offspring? What is to-day the actual strength of the
+social needs which have produced the large Japanese family?[228]
+Whatever middle-aged Japanese may think, the matter is not in their
+hands, but in the hands of the younger generation. Most Western
+economists would no doubt argue that if fewer babies arrived in Japan
+there would not be so many farmers' boys and university graduates bent
+on emigrating.
+
+Without the voluntary limitation of families, however, the number of
+children born is likely to be diminished by the increased cost of
+living and by the postponement of marriage. I know Japanese men who
+were married before they were twenty; the younger generation of my
+friends is marrying nearer thirty.[229]
+
+There is reason to believe that the population has not increased of
+recent years at the old rate.[230] A responsible authority expressed
+the opinion to me that the necessities of the population are unlikely
+to overtake the means of production in the near future.[231]
+
+The Japanese are intensely practical, but they have, as we have seen,
+another side. If that other side is not "spiritual," in the sense in
+which the word is largely used in the West, it is at least regardful
+of other considerations than the "practical." It is with thoughts of
+that vital side of the national character that I recall a story told
+me by Dr. Nitobe of the last days of the Forty-seven Ronin. It is well
+authenticated. When the Ronin had slain their dead lord's persecutor
+and had given themselves up to the authorities, they were found worthy
+of death. But the Shogun was in some anxiety as to what might justly
+be done. He sent privily to a famous abbot saying that it was at all
+times the duty of the Shogun to condemn to death men who had committed
+murder. Yet it was the privilege of a priest to ask for mercy, and in
+the matter of the lives of the Ronin the Shogun would not be unwilling
+to listen to a plea for mercy. The abbot answered that he sympathised
+deeply with the Ronin, but because he so sympathised with them he was
+unwilling to take any steps which might hinder the carrying out of the
+sentence. It was true, he said, that there were old men among the
+Ronin, but many, of them were young men--one was only fifteen--and it
+had to be borne in mind that if they escaped death at the hands of the
+law it was hardly likely that during the whole course of their
+after-lives they could hope to escape committing sin of some sort or
+another. At the moment they had reached a pinnacle of nobility which
+they could never pass and it was a thing to be desired for them that
+they should die now, when they would live to all posterity as heroes.
+The happiest fate for the Ronin was a righteous death, and as their
+admiring sympathiser the abbot expressed his unwillingness to do
+anything which might have the effect of saving them from so glorious
+an end.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[221] Someone said to me, "I have in mind one village where there is a
+poorly cared-for school and a score of teahouses giving employment to
+nearly two hundred people."
+
+[222] "Small boards with crude designs painted on them. They may be
+prayers, thank-offerings or protective charms. A shrine where many
+thanks _ema_ have been left is clearly that of a god ready to hear and
+answer prayer. Worshippers flock to the place and the accumulation of
+painted boards--whether prayers or thanks--increases."--FREDERICK
+STARR, _Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan_, vol. xlviii.
+
+[223] The percentage in conscripts in 1918 was 2.2 per cent, against
+2.5 per cent, in 1917 and 2.7 per cent, in 1916. ("Not less than 10
+per cent. of the population of our large towns are infected with
+syphilis and a much larger proportion with gonorrhœa."--SIR JAMES
+CRICHTON-BROWNE.) The figures for the general population of Japan must
+be higher.
+
+[224] See Appendix LXIII.
+
+[225] It sometimes happens that an adopted son is dismissed with "a
+sufficient monetary compensation" when a real son is born.
+
+[226] I met a fine ex-daimyo, who after the Restoration had served as
+a prefectural governor. He was so generous in giving money to public
+objects in his prefecture that his family compelled him to resign
+office.
+
+[227] See Appendix XXX.
+
+[228] It is only within the last quarter of a century that the
+authorities have taken a stand against infanticide. There is no
+traditional dislike of an artificial diminution of progeny, for many
+of the fathers and grandfathers of the present generation practised
+it. Methods of procuring abortion were also common. A certain plant
+has a well-known reputation as an abortifacient. A young peer and his
+wife are now conducting a campaign on behalf of smaller families, and
+the discussion has advanced far enough for a magazine to invite Dr.
+Havelock Ellis to express his views.
+
+[229] According to the 1918 figures the ages at which men and women
+married were as follows per 1,000: before 20, m. 37.6, w. 259.0;
+20-25, m. 304.9, w. 434.8; 26-30, m. 347.9, w. 159.4; 31-35, m. 145.1,
+w. 67.3; 36-40, m. 70.0, w. 37.1; 41-45, m. 41.8, w. 21.4; 46-50, m.
+22.8, w. 10.5; 51-55, m. 14.7, w. 6.0; 56-60, m. 7.3, w. 2.5; 61 and
+upwards, m. 7.9, w. 2.
+
+[230] See Appendix XXX.
+
+[231] See Appendices XXV and LXXX; also page 363 for the reasons
+operating against emigration. Mr. J. Russell Kennedy, of
+Kokusai-Reuter, declared (1921) that it was "a myth that Japan must
+find an outlet for surplus population; Japan has plenty of room within
+her own border," that is, including Korea and Formosa as well as
+Hokkaido in Japan. Mr. S. Yoshida, Secretary of the Japanese Embassy
+in London, in an address also delivered in 1921, stressed the value of
+the fishing-grounds and the mercantile marine as openings for an
+increased population. "The resources of the sea," he said, "give Japan
+more room for her population than appears."
+
+
+
+
+REFLECTIONS IN HOKKAIDO
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+COLONIAL JAPAN AND ITS UN-JAPANESE WAYS
+
+Above all, this is not concerned with poetry.--WILFRED OWEN
+
+
+When the traveller stands at the northern end of the mainland[232] of
+Japan he is five hundred miles from Tokyo. In the north of Hokkaido he
+is a thousand miles away. Hokkaido, the most northerly and the second
+biggest of the four islands into which Japan is divided, is curiously
+American. The wide straight streets of the capital, Sapporo,[233] laid
+out at right angles, the rough buggies with the farmer and his wife
+riding together, the wooden houses with stove stacks, and, instead of
+paper-covered _shoji_, window panes: these things are seen nowhere
+else in Japan and came straight from America. It was certainly from
+America that the farmers had their cries of "Whoa." One of the best
+authorities on Hokkaido has declared that the administrative and
+agricultural instructors whom America sent there from about the time
+of the Franco-Prussian war "gave Japan a fairer, kindlier conception
+of America than all her study of American history."
+
+In Old Japan there is always something which speaks of the centuries
+that are gone; in Sapporo there is nothing that matters which is fifty
+years old. One of the most remarkable facts in the agricultural
+history of Japan is that a country with a teeming population and an
+intensive farming should have left entirely undeveloped to so late a
+period as the early seventies a great island of 35,000 square miles
+which lies within sight of its shores. The wonder is that an attempt
+on Yezo[234] was not made by the Russians, who, but for the vigorous
+action of a British naval commander, would undoubtedly have taken
+possession of the island of Tsushima, 700 miles farther south and
+midway between Japan and Korea. Up to the time of the fall of the
+Shogun the revenue of the lords of Yezo was got by taxing the harvest
+of the sea and the precarious gains of hunters. The Imperial Rescript
+carried by the army which was sent against certain adherents of the
+Shogun who had fled there said: "We intend to take steps to reclaim
+and people the island."[235] It is doubtful if at that period the
+population was more than 60,000[236] (including Ainu).[237]
+
+When Count Kuroda was put at the head of the Colonial Government he
+went over to America and secured as his adviser-in-chief the chief of
+the Agricultural Department at Washington. Stock, seeds, fruit trees,
+implements and machinery, railway engines, buildings, practically
+everything was American in the early days of Hokkaido. During a
+ten-year period, in which forty-five American instructors were sent
+for, five Russians, four Britons, four Germans, three Dutchmen and a
+Frenchman were also imported.[238]
+
+Governor Kuroda had a million yen placed at his disposal for ten years
+in succession, and a million yen was a big sum in those days. Before
+long there were flour mills, breweries, beet-sugar factories, canning
+plants, lead and coal mining and silk manufacturing and an experiment
+in soldier colonisation which owed something to Russian experiments in
+Cossack farming. An agricultural school grew into a large agricultural
+college; and this agricultural college has lately become the
+University of Hokkaido, with nearly a thousand students.[239] How much
+of a pioneer Sapporo College was may be gathered from the fact that
+when I was in Hokkaido 67 out of the 140 men who were members of the
+faculty had been themselves taught there. Dean Sato (Japan's first
+exchange lecturer to American universities), Dr. Nitobe (Japanese
+Secretary of the League of Nations) and Kanzō Uchimura were among the
+first students. There have always been American professors at
+Sapporo--its first president came from Massachusetts--and the
+professorship of English has always been held by an American.
+
+The 50 acres of elm-studded land in which the University buildings
+stand are a surprise, for the elm grows nowhere else in Japan but
+Hokkaido.[240] The extent of the University's landed possessions is
+also unexpected. There are two training farms of 185 and 260 acres
+respectively, beautifully kept botanic gardens, a tract of 15,000
+acres on which there are already more than a thousand tenants, and
+300,000 acres of forests in Hokkaido, Saghalien and Korea. Four or
+five times as many students as can be admitted offer themselves at
+Sapporo.
+
+There is in Hokkaido an agricultural and rural life conceived for a
+country where stock may be kept and a farmer does not need to practise
+the superintensive farming of Old Japan. At the first University farm
+I looked over it was clear that not only American but Swedish, German
+and Swiss farming practice had had its influence. No longer was the
+farmer content with mattocks, hoes and flails. A silo dominated the
+scene, and maize, eaten from the cob in Old Japan, was a crop for
+stock.[241] I also noticed crops of oats and rye.
+
+I arrived in Hokkaido in the last week of August in a linen suit and
+was glad to put on a woollen one. By September 29 it was snowing.
+Snow-shoes were shown among the products of the island at the
+prefectural exhibition. Canadians have likened the climate of Hokkaido
+to that of Manitoba. Hokkaido is on the line of the Great Lakes, but
+the cold current from the North makes comparisons of this sort
+ineffective. It is only in southern Hokkaido that apples will grow.
+Thirty years ago wolves and bear were shot two miles from Sapporo and
+bear may still be found within ten miles.
+
+The sea fisheries of Hokkaido are valuable but agriculture and
+forestry are greater money makers. Even without forestry agriculture
+is well ahead of factory industry, which is also eclipsed by mining.
+Industry is aided by the presence of coal. Among manufactures, brewing
+stands out even more conspicuously than wood-pulp making or canning.
+One of the three best-known beers in Japan comes from Hokkaido.[242]
+In contrast with the situation in Old Japan, where the land is half
+paddy and half upland, there is in Hokkaido only a ninth of the
+cultivated land under rice.[243] When I was in Hokkaido there were
+600,000 _chō_ under cultivation, a hundred and fifty times more than
+there were in 1873. The line marking the northern or rather the
+north-eastern limit of rice shows roughly a third of the island on the
+northern and eastern coasts to be at present beyond the skill of rice
+growers. There is always uncertainty with the rice crop in Hokkaido.
+As the growing period is short, half the rice is not transplanted but
+sown direct in the paddies. A bad crop is expected once in seven
+years. In such a season there is no yield and even the straw is not
+good.
+
+Immigrants get 5 _chō_, but if they are without capital they first go
+to work as tenants. There are contractors in the towns who supply
+labourers to farmers and factories at busy times. When newcomers have
+capital and are keen on rice growing and are families working without
+hired labour, they are strongly recommended not to devote more than
+2-1\2 _chō_ to rice--from 3 to 5 _chō_ are the absolute limit--against
+1-1\2 or 2 _chō_ to other crops. When the holder of a 5-_chō_ holding
+prospers he buys a second farm and more horses and implements, and
+hires labour for the busy period. But 10 or 15 _chō_ is considered as
+much as can be worked in this way. If the area is more than 10 or 15
+_chō_ it is difficult to get labour in the busy season, for it is the
+busy season for everybody. Labourers from a distance can be got only
+at an unprofitable rate. It is first the lack of capital and then the
+lack of labour which prevents the farmer extending his holding.[244]
+The limit of practical mixed farming is 30 _chō_. (Stock farming is
+for milk rather than for meat, and more than one condensed-milk
+factory is in operation.) Even in Hokkaido large farming, as it is
+understood in Great Britain and America, is not easy to find.[245]
+
+On my journey north from Sapporo the first thing which brought home to
+me the colonial character of the agriculture was the tree stumps
+sticking up in the paddies. The second was the extent to which the
+rivers were still uncontrolled. The longest river in Japan, 260 miles
+long, is in Hokkaido. There was obviously a vast moorland area in need
+of draining. Peat--there are 300,000 _chō_ of it--may be a standby
+when the waste of timber that is going on brings about a shortage of
+fuel other than coal. From poor peat soil, which was growing oats,
+buckwheat and millet, we passed to land capable of producing rice, and
+saw ploughing with horses. One region had been opened for only twenty
+years, but already the farmers had cultivated the hillsides in the
+assiduous fashion of Old Japan.
+
+From Ashigawa we made some excursions in a prim _basha_ to places
+which were always several miles farther on than they were supposed to
+be and were usually reached by tracks covered with stones from 6 to 9
+ins. long and having ruts a foot deep.
+
+We visited a large estate with 350 tenants who were mostly working
+2-1/2 _chō_, though some had twice as much. Nearly all of these
+tenants appeared to have one or two horses, although the estate
+manager had advised them to use oxen or cows as more economical
+draught animals. When I remembered the distance the farmers were from
+the town and the state of the roads, and noticed the satisfaction
+which the men we passed displayed in being able to ride, it was easy
+to believe that the possession of a horse might have its value as a
+means of social progress. During the last ten years half the tenants
+had made enough to enable them to buy farms. The tenants on this
+estate had two temples and one shrine.[246]
+
+I visited a fifteen-years-old co-operative alcohol factory with a
+capital of 300,000 yen. Of its materials 80 per cent. seemed to be
+potato starch waste and 20 per cent. maize. The product was 6,000 or
+7,000 _koku_ of alcohol. The dividend was 8 per cent. On the waste a
+large number of pigs was fed. The animals were kept in pens with
+boarded floors within a small area, and I was not surprised to learn
+that three or four died every month. Starch making, which produces the
+waste used by the alcohol factory, is managed on quite a small scale.
+An outfit may cost no more than 30 or 50 yen. I went over a small
+peppermint-making plant. Most of the peppermint raised in Japan--it
+reaches a value of 2 million yen--is grown in Hokkaido.
+
+One day in the eastern part of the island I met in a small hotel,
+which was run by a man and his wife who had been in America, several
+old farmers who had obviously made money. They declared that formerly
+only 20 per cent. of the colonists succeeded, but now the proportion
+was more than 65 per cent. I imagine that they meant by success that
+the colonists did really well, for it was added that it was rare in
+that district for people to return to Old Japan. One of the company
+said that not more than 5 per cent. returned. "Land is too expensive
+at home," he continued; "when a Japanese comes here and gets some, he
+works hard." A good man, they said, should make, after four or five
+years, 70 to 100 yen clear profit in a year.
+
+I rather suspect that the men I talked with had made some of their
+money by advancing funds to their neighbours on mortgage. They all
+seemed to own several farms. When I asked how religion prospered in
+Hokkaido they said with a smile, "There are many things to do here, so
+there is no spare time for religion as in our native places." There is
+a larger proportion of Christians in Hokkaido than on the mainland.
+One village of a thousand inhabitants contained two churches and a
+Salvation Army barracks. It was reputed, also, to have eight or ten
+"waitresses" and five saké shops. It is said that a good deal of
+_shochu_, which is stronger than saké, is drunk.
+
+The roughest _basha_ ride I made was to a place seven miles from
+railhead in the extreme north-east. Such roads as we adventured by are
+little more than tracks with ditches on either side. The journey back,
+because there were no horses to ride, we made in a narrow but
+extraordinarily heavy farm wagon with wheels a foot wide and drawn by
+a stallion. Shortly after starting there was a terrific thunderstorm
+which soaked us and hastened uncomfortably the pace of the animal in
+the shafts. When the worst of the downpour was over, and we had faced
+the prospect of slithering about the wagon for the rest of the
+journey, for the stallion had decided to hurry, a farmer's wife asked
+us for a lift and clambered in with agility. My companion and I were
+then sitting in a soggy state with our backs against the wagon front
+and our legs outstretched resignedly. The cheery farmer's wife, who
+was wet too, plopped down between us and, as the bumps came, gripped
+one of my legs with much good fellowship. She was a godsend by reason
+of her plumpness, for we were now wedged so tight that we no longer
+rocked and pitched about the wagon at each jolt. And no doubt we dried
+more quickly. Providence had indeed been good to us, for shortly
+afterwards we passed, lying on its side in a _spruit_, the _basha_
+that had carried us on our outward journey.
+
+We were three hours in all in the wagon. Our passenger told us that
+her husband had several farms and that they were very comfortably off
+and very glad that they had come to Hokkaido. When the farmer's wife
+had to alight a mile from our destination we chose to walk. Bad roads
+are a serious problem for the Hokkaido farmer. In one district, only
+fifteen miles from the capital, they are so bad that rice is at half
+the price it makes in Sapporo. It is unfortunate that the roads are at
+their worst in autumn and spring when the farmer wants to transport
+his produce.
+
+I visited the 700-acre settlement which Mr. Tomeoka has opened in
+connection with his Tokyo institution for the reclamation of young
+wastrels. His formula is, "Feed them well, work them hard and give
+them enough sleep." Among the volumes on his shelves there were three
+books about Tolstoy and another three, one English, one American and
+one German, all bearing the same title, _The Social Question_.
+Needless to say that _Self-Help_ had its place.
+
+I liked Mr. Tomeoka's idea of an open-air chapel on a tree-shaded
+height from which there was a fine view. It reminded me of the view
+from an open space on rising ground near the famous Danish rural high
+school of Askov, from which, on Sundays, parties of excursionists used
+to look down enviously on Slesvig and irritate the Germans by singing
+Danish national songs. Mr. Tomeoka believed in better houses and
+better food for farmers and in money raised by means of the _kō_--"the
+rules and regulations of co-operative societies are too complicated
+for farmers to understand."
+
+I saw the huts of some settlers who had weathered their first Hokkaido
+winter. Buckwheat, scratched in in open spaces among the trees, was
+the chief crop. The huts consisted of one room. Most of the floor was
+raised above the ground and covered with rough straw matting. In the
+centre of the platform was the usual fire-hole. The walls were matting
+and brushwood. I was assured that "the snow and good fires, for which
+there is unlimited fuel, keep the huts warm."
+
+The railway winds through high hills and makes sharp curves and steep
+ascents and descents. There are tracts of rolling country under rough
+grass. Sometimes these areas have been cleared by forest fires
+started by lightning. Wide spaces are a great change from the scenery
+of closely farmed Japan. The thing that makes the hillsides different
+from our wilder English and Scottish hillsides is that there are
+neither sheep nor cattle on them.
+
+When the culpable destruction of timber in Hokkaido is added to what
+has been lost by forest fires, due to lightning or to accident--one
+conflagration was more than 200 acres in extent--it is easy to realise
+that the rivers are bringing far more water and detritus from the
+hills than they ought to do and are preparing flood problems with
+which it will cost millions to cope when the country gets more closely
+settled. It is deplorable that, apart from needless burning on the
+hillsides, the farmers have not been dissuaded from completely
+clearing their arable land of trees. On many holdings there is not
+even a clump left to shelter the farmhouse and buildings. In not a few
+districts the colonists have created treeless plains. In place after
+place the once beautiful countryside is now ugly and depressing.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[232] The word used by people in Hokkaido for the main island, Hondo
+or Honshu (_Hon_, main; _do_ or _shu_, land), is _Naichi_ (interior).
+
+[233] From Aomori on the mainland to Hakodate in Hokkaido is a
+50-miles sea trip. Then comes a long night journey to Sapporo, during
+which one passes between two active volcanoes. The sea trip is 50
+miles because a large part of the route taken by the steamer is
+through Aomori Bay. The nearest part of Hokkaido to the mainland is a
+little less than the distance between Dover and Calais.
+
+[234] Foreigners sometimes confound Yezo (Hokkaido) with Yedo, the old
+name for Tokyo.
+
+[235] A sixth of Hokkaido still belongs to the Imperial Household. In
+1918 it decided to sell forest and other land (parts of Japan not
+stated) to the value of 100 million yen. In 1917 the Imperial estates
+were estimated at 18-3/4 million chō of forest and 22-1/4 million chō
+of "plains," that is tracts which are not timbered nor cultivated nor
+built on.
+
+[236] In 1919 it was 2,137,700.
+
+[237] Considerations of space compel the holding over of a chapter on
+the Ainu for another volume.
+
+[238] Of the 96 foreign instructors in institutions "under the direct
+control" of the Tokyo Department of Education in 1917-18, there were
+27 British, 22 German, 19 American and 12 French.
+
+[239] Hokkaido is one of five Imperial universities. There are in
+addition several well-known private universities.
+
+[240] Grouse are also to be found in Hokkaido, but no pheasants and no
+monkeys. The deep Tsugaru Strait marks an ancient geological division
+between Hokkaido and the mainland.
+
+[241] It is sometimes eaten, ground to a rough meal, with rice. The
+argument is that maize is two thirds the price of rice and more easily
+digested.
+
+[242] See Appendix XXXVII.
+
+[243] The latest figures for Hokkaido show only a tenth.
+
+[244] For farmers' incomes, see Appendix XIII.
+
+[245] For sizes of farms, see Appendix LXIV.
+
+[246] For a tenant's contract, see Appendix LXV.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+SHALL THE JAPANESE EAT BREAD AND MEAT?
+
+_Bon yori shoko_ (Proof, not argument)
+
+
+One day in Tokyo I heard a Japanese who was looking at a photograph of
+a British woman War-worker feeding pigs ask if the animals were sheep.
+Sheep are so rare in Japan that an old ram has been exhibited at a
+country fair as a lion. In contrast with Western agriculture based on
+live stock we have in Japan an agriculture based on rice.[247] But a
+section of the Japanese agricultural world turns its eyes longingly to
+mixed farming, and so, when I returned to Sapporo from my trip to the
+north of Hokkaido, I was taken to see a Government stock farm--with a
+smoking volcano in the background. Hokkaido has four other official
+farms, one belonging to the Government and one for raising horses for
+the army. I was shown, in addition to horses, Ayrshire, Holstein and
+Brown Swiss cattle, Berkshire and Yorkshire pigs and Southdown and
+Shropshire sheep in good buildings. I noticed two self-binders and a
+hay loader and I beheld for the first time in Japan a dairymaid and
+collies--one was of a useless show type.
+
+The extent to which the knack of looking after animals and a liking
+for them can be developed is an interesting question. Experts in
+stock-keeping with generations of experience behind them will agree
+that it is on the answer to this question that the success or
+non-success of the Japanese in animal industry in no small measure
+depends.
+
+I have a note of a discussion on the general treatment of domestic
+animals in Japan in the course of which it was admitted that they were
+"certainly not treated as well as in most parts of Europe, or as in
+China." One reason given was that "most sects believe in the
+reincarnation of the wicked in the form of animals." The freedom which
+dogs enjoyed in English houses seemed strange; my friends no doubt
+forgot that Western houses have no _tatami_ to be preserved. It was
+contended, however, that cavalry soldiers "often weep on parting from
+their horses" and that "people with knowledge of animals are fond of
+them." I have myself seen farmers' wives in tears at a horse fair when
+the foals they had reared were to be sold and the animals in their
+timidity nuzzled them. Westerners who are familiar with the exquisite
+and humoursome studies of animal, bird and insect life by Japanese
+artists of the past and present day,[248] are in no doubt that such
+work was prompted by real knowledge and love of the "lower creation."
+The Japanese have a keen appreciation of the "song" of an amazing
+variety of "musical" insects--there are 20,000 kinds of insects. It is
+an appreciation not vouchsafed to the foreigner whose nerves are
+racked by the insistent bizz of the _semi_ or cicada--there are 38
+kinds of cicada. Everyone will recall Hearn's chapter on the trade in
+"singing insects."
+
+One of my hosts in Aichi had two tiny cages which each contained one
+of these creatures. The cages were hung from the eaves. In the evening
+when the stone lantern in the garden was lit, and it was desired to
+give an illusion of greater coolness after a hot day a servant was
+sent up to the roof to pour down a tubful of water in order to produce
+the dripping sound of rain; and this at once set the caged insects
+chirping.
+
+The sensitive foreigner is distressed by the way in which newly born
+puppies and kittens are thrown out to die because their Buddhist
+owners are too scrupulous to kill them. The stranger's feelings are
+also worked on by the unhappy demeanour and uncared-for look of dogs
+and cats. On chancing to enter in a Japanese city an English home
+where there were three dogs I could not but mark how they contrasted
+in bearing and appearance with the generality of the animals I had
+seen. Yet these dogs were all mongrel foundlings which had been
+abandoned near my friend's house or dropped into her garden. No doubt
+most Japanese dogs suffer from having too much rice--and polished at
+that--and practically no bones. An excuse for the neglect of cats is
+that they scratch woodwork and _tatami_ and insist on carrying their
+food into the best room.
+
+Horses are often overloaded and mercilessly driven on hilly
+roads.[249] On the other hand, carters lead their horses. It might be
+added that the coolies who haul and push handcarts bearing enormous
+loads never spare themselves. I was told more than once of people who
+had been too tenderhearted to make an end of old horses. I also heard
+of hens which had been allowed to live on until they died of old age.
+In some mountain communities it is the custom, when a chicken must be
+killed for a visitor's meal, for an exchange of birds to be made with
+a neighbour in order that the killing may not be too painful for the
+owner.[250]
+
+Except in hotels and stores in Tokyo and the cities which cater for
+foreigners, one seldom sees such an animal product as cheese. On the
+Government farm I found excellent cheese and butter being made.
+Untravelled Japanese have the dislike of the smell of cheese that
+Western people have of the stench of boiling _daikon_. Nor is cheese
+the only alien food with which the ordinary Japanese has a difficulty.
+The smell of mutton is repugnant to him and he has yet to acquire a
+taste for milk. The demand for milk is increasing, however. The guide
+books are quite out of date. Nearly all the milk ordinarily sold for
+foreigners and invalids is supplied sterilised in bottles. On the
+platforms of the larger railway stations bottles of milk are vended
+from a copper container holding hot water. In places where I have been
+able to obtain bread I have usually had no difficulty in getting milk.
+(The word for bread, _pan_, has been in the language since the coming
+of the Portuguese, and all over Japan one finds sponge cake,
+_kasutera_, a word from the Spanish.) Butter in country hotels is
+usually rancid, for the reason, I imagine, that it is carelessly
+handled and kept too long and that few Japanese know the taste of good
+butter. The development of a liking for bread and butter is obviously
+one of the conditions of the establishment of a successful animal
+industry. Condensed milk is sold in large quantities, but chiefly to
+supplement infants' supplies and to make sweetstuff. The 1919
+production was estimated at 57 million tins.
+
+One argument for an animal industry is that with an increasing
+population the fish supply will not go so far as it has done. It is
+said that fish are not to be found in as large quantities as formerly.
+Another argument is that the national imports include many products of
+animal industry which might be advantageously produced at home. Not
+only is more milk, condensed and fresh, being consumed: with the
+adoption of foreign clothes in professional and business life and in
+the army and navy, more and more wool is being worn[251] and more and
+more leather is needed for the boots which are being substituted for
+_geta_ and also for service requirements. It is contended that for the
+emancipation of Japanese agriculture from the _petite culture_ stage
+it is essential that a larger number of draught oxen and horses shall
+be used. It is equally important, it is suggested, that more manure
+shall be made on the farms, so that a limit shall be placed on the
+outlay on imported fertilisers. Finally there are those who urge that
+the Japanese should be better fed and that better feeding can only be
+brought about by an increased consumption of animal products.[252]
+
+The possibilities of outdoor stock keeping in Hokkaido are limited by
+the fact that snow lies from November to the middle of February and in
+the north of the island to the end of March. A high agricultural
+authority did not think that the number of cattle in all Japan could
+be raised to more than two million within twenty years.[253]
+
+In the management of sheep--there were about 5,000 in the whole
+country when I was in Hokkaido--there has been failure after failure,
+but it is held that the prospects for sheep in Hokkaido are promising.
+(The question is discussed in the next Chapter.) At present, owing to
+the lack of a market for mutton, pigs, which used to be kept in the
+days before Buddhism exerted its influence, seem more attractive to
+experimenting farmers than sheep. No one has proposed that sheep
+should be kept in ones and twos for milking as in Holland.[254] When
+milk is needed it is said that goats, of which there are more than
+90,000 in Japan, are desirable stock, but I doubt whether more than
+500 of these goats are milked.[255] They are kept to produce meat.
+Some people hope that those who eat goat's flesh will come to realise
+the superiority of mutton.
+
+The case for pigs is that sweet potatoes and squash can be fed to
+them, that they produce frequent litters, that pork is more and more
+appreciated, and that there are 300,000 of them in the country
+already. Some confident experts who have possibly been influenced by
+the large consumption of pork in China argue that pork may become
+equally popular in Japan. There are two bacon factories not far from
+Tokyo.
+
+As in other countries, the argument for doing away with foreign
+imports is pushed in Japan to ridiculous lengths. Japan, which aims
+above all at being an exporting country, cannot attain her desire
+without receiving imports to pay for her exports.[256] The
+physiological argument for an animal industry is unconvincing. The
+Japanese have a long dietetic history as vegetarians who eat a little
+fish and a few eggs. There exists in Japan an exceptionally ingenious
+variety of nitrogenous foods derived from the vegetable kingdom, and
+the Japanese have become accustomed to digest vegetable protein.[257]
+It might be suggested, with some show of reason, that in this matter
+of the adoption of a meat dietary the Japanese are once more under the
+influence of foreign ideas which are a little out of date.[258] In
+Europe and America there is evidence of a decreasing meat consumption
+among educated people, and medical papers are full of counsels to
+diminish the amount of meat consumed. There is also in the West an
+increasing sensitiveness to the horrors inflicted on animals in
+transportation by rail and steamer, and if an animal industry were
+established in Japan there would certainly be a great deal of
+transportation by rail and steamer from the breeding to the rearing
+districts, and from these districts to the slaughtering centres. If
+the present advocacy of an animal industry for Japan should triumph
+over the reluctance to take animal life inculcated by Buddhism it is
+hardly likely to be regarded in the West as a forward step in the
+ethical evolution of the Japanese.[259]
+
+I had the good fortune to meet in Sapporo a man who has made a
+special study of the food of the Japanese people, Professor Morimoto
+of the University. He said that he had no doubt that when the Japanese
+began to eat bread instead of rice they would develop a taste for meat
+as well as butter. With great kindness he placed at my disposal
+statistics which he afterwards expanded in a thesis for Johns Hopkins
+University. He had investigated the dietary of the families of 200
+tenants of the University farms. Reduced to terms of men per day the
+result was:
+
+                            Sen.                 Sen.
+Rice (1.95 _go_)            4.2     Vegetables   2.2
+(Naked) barley (3.45 _go_)  3.3     Pickles[260]  .6
+Fish                        1.0     Saké          .08
+_Miso_                       .7     Sugar         .02
+_Shoyu_ (soy)                .03               ------
+                                                12.13
+
+Or at Tokyo prices, 14.3 sen. On averaging, in terms of per man per
+day, the food and drink consumption of all Japan, Professor Morimoto
+found the result to be:
+
+                        Sen.                        Sen.
+Grain                   6.60          Fruits         .40
+Legumes                  .39          Sugar          .53
+Vegetables              2.00          Salt           .20
+Fish and seaweeds        .54          Tea            .10
+Beef and veal            .10 }        Alcoholic
+Other animal food        .03 }          liquor      1.50
+Chicken                  .03 } .33    Tobacco        .45
+Eggs                     .13 }
+Milk                     .04 }
+                                                   -----
+                                                   13.04[261]
+
+
+The Professor compares with these totals the 34.4 sen and 39.3 sen per
+day which seem to represent the cost of the food of the rank and file
+in the navy and army, and three standards of diet issued by the
+official Bureau of Hygiene providing for expenditures of 32.1 sen, 33
+sen and 44.4 sen respectively. (All the prices I have cited are dated
+1915.) Beef and pork as well as fish are used in the army and navy.
+The navy also uses bread.
+
+Professor Morimoto estimates that a Japanese may be fairly expected to
+consume only 80 per cent. of what a foreigner needs, for the average
+weight of Japanese is only 13 _kwan_ 830 _momme_ to the European's 17
+_kwan_ 20 _momme_.
+
+My personal impression, which I give merely for what it is worth, for
+I have made no investigation of the subject, is that, though Japanese
+may thrive on meagre fare, they eat large quantities of food when
+their resources permit of indulgence. The common ailment seems to be
+"stomach ache." This may be due to eating at irregular hours, to an
+unbalanced dietary, to the eating of undercooked viands or to
+occasional over-eating, or to all of these causes.[262] Undoubtedly
+there is much room for dietetic reform.
+
+Professor Morimoto had come to the conclusion "that there is
+under-feeding, largely due to a bad choice of foods, that the relation
+of the nutritive value of foods to their cost is insufficiently
+studied and that cooking can be improved." It is of course an old
+criticism of the Japanese table that food is either imperfectly cooked
+or prepared too much with a view to appearance. The Professor's
+finding was that the Japanese need the addition of meat and bread to
+their dietary. As far as meat is concerned he did not convince me. Let
+me quote him on the soy bean: "It is a remarkably good substitute for
+meat. It is very low in price but its nutritive value is very high.
+The essential element of _miso_, _tofu_ and _shoyu_ is soy bean."
+Bread is another matter. The Japanese Navy, presumably because it may
+find itself far from Japan, has accustomed its sailors to eat bread,
+and a case can certainly be made out for the general population not
+relying on rice as a grain food. But, as the large quantities of
+barley eaten show, there is no such reliance now. Morimoto urged that
+while there might be no difference in the nutritive value of wheat and
+rice, rice as usually eaten induced "abnormal distension of the
+stomach and poor nutrition." Again, wheat was a world crop,[263]
+whereas rice, owing to the Japanese objection to foreign rice, was a
+local crop. If the Japanese were users of wheat as well as of rice
+they would not have to pay so much for food, when, on the failure of
+the rice crop in considerable parts of Japan, the price of rice was
+high. "The consumption is about 10 million bushels more than the
+production." Further, rice was more costly in cultivation than wheat,
+and its production could not be increased so as to keep pace with the
+increase in population. The yield, which was 46 million _koku_ in
+1904, was only 50 millions in 1912; and 65 millions in 1927 seemed an
+excessive estimate. In 1912 the importation of rice was 2 million
+_koku_. But on all these points the reader should take note of the
+data on page 84 and in Appendices XXIV and XXV.
+
+The Professor's concluding point against rice was that it was
+expensive to prepare. The washing of the rice in a succession of
+waters and the cleaning of the sticky pot in which it was cooked and
+of the equally sticky tub in which it was served took a great deal of
+time. Then in order to cook rice properly--and the Japanese have
+become connoisseurs--the exact proportion of water must be gauged. The
+supplies of rice to be cooked were so considerable that the name of
+the servant lass was "girl to boil the rice." But when bread was used
+instead of rice, said the Professor jubilantly, a baking twice a week
+would do. Why, an hour a day might be saved, which in twenty years
+would be 73,000 hours, or a whole year, and, reckoning women's labour
+as worth 5 sen an hour, that would be a saving of 565 yen!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[247] For statistics of cultivated area and live stock, see Appendix
+LXVI.
+
+[248] One thinks of Takeuchi Seiho who lives in Kyoto, of
+Toba Sojo (11th century) for monkeys, frogs and bullocks, and in the
+Tokugawa period of Okio for dogs and carp, of Jakchū for fowls and
+birds, of Hasegawa Tohaku and Sosen for monkeys, of Kawanabe Kyosai
+for crows, and of Kesai and Hokusai for birds, fish and insects.
+
+[249] Nevertheless it is well not to be hasty in judgment. On the day
+on which this footnote was written, April 7, 1921, I find the
+following items in the _Daily Mail_. On page 4 the Attorney-General
+regrets that the law tolerates the "cruel practice" by which 30
+pigeons were killed or injured at a certain pigeon-shooting
+competition and expresses inability to bring in legislation. On page
+5, col. 2, an M.P. is reported as mentioning a case in which a puppy
+had been kicked to death and as asking the Home Secretary whether the
+law imposing imprisonment for a short term could not be strengthened.
+On the same page, col. 5, a railway porter is reported as having been
+fined for flinging three small calves into a farm cart by the tails.
+
+[250] For poultry statistics, see Appendix LXVII.
+
+[251] Before the extensive use of _yofuku_ (foreign clothes) the dress
+of Japanese men and women was entirely of cotton and silk or of cotton
+only. Much of the material from which _yofuku_ are made is no doubt
+cotton.
+
+[252] See Appendix LXVIII
+
+[253] The number of cattle, which was 1,342,587 in 1916, was only
+1,307,120 in 1918. See also Appendix LXVI.
+
+[254] For photographs and particulars of the milk sheep, see my _Free
+Farmer in a Free State_.
+
+[255] The value of the well-bred and well-cared-for goat as a milk and
+manure producer is underestimated. The problem of keeping goats in
+such a way that they shall not be destructive and shall yield the
+maximum of manure is discussed in my _Case for the Goat_.
+
+[256] This question as it affects an agricultural country is discussed
+in _A Free Farmer in a Free State_.
+
+[257] There is a consensus of scientific opinion that "non-meat
+eating" races such as the Japanese have longer alimentary tracts than
+flesh-eating Europeans. It is difficult to be precise on the subject,
+an eminent Western surgeon tells me, for bowels are as contractile as
+worms, which at one minute measure 100 units in length and the next
+minute have shortened to 30. So much depends on the state at death.
+
+[258] On the other hand, the Japanese have taken up many new things at
+the point which we in the West have only recently reached. They begin
+to produce milk and supply it, not in the milkman's pail, but in
+sterilised bottles. They abandon candles and lamps and, practically
+skipping gas, adopt electric light or power. The capital invested in
+electric enterprises in 1919 was about 700 million yen or seven times
+that invested in gas.
+
+[259] There is one blameless form of stock keeping which is developing
+in Hokkaido. Bees, which have still to make their way in Old Japan,
+are now 6,000 hives strong in the northern island, though a start was
+made only six or seven years ago.
+
+[260] It is illustrative of the extent to which pickle is
+consumed in Japan that a family in Sapporo was found to have eaten no
+fewer than 283 _daikon_ in a year.
+
+[261] The reader must put away the impression which this table
+gives of a varied dietary. Few Japanese have such a range of food. The
+average man habitually lives on rice, bean products (_tofu_, bean
+jelly and _miso_, soft bean cheese), pickles, vegetables, tea, a
+little fish and sometimes eggs. People of narrow means see little of
+eggs and not much fish, unless it be _katsubushi_.
+
+[262] The watering of vegetables with liquid manure, the usual
+practice of the Japanese farmer, and the pollution of the paddies make
+salads and insufficiently cooked green stuff dangerous and many water
+supplies of questionable purity. Great efforts have been made to
+provide safe tap water from the hills. Intestinal parasites are
+common. The build of the Japanese makes for strength, but in the urban
+areas there is much absence from work on the plea of ill-health. Both
+in Japan and in England I have been struck by the fact that when I
+made an excursion with an urban Japanese he often tired before I did,
+and on none of these trips was I in anything like first-class
+condition.
+
+[263] Many Japanese look forward to a great production of wheat on the
+north-eastern Asiatic mainland under Japanese auspices. In considering
+imports of wheat it should be remembered that some of it is used in
+soy and macaroni.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+MUST THE JAPANESE MAKE THEIR OWN "YOFUKU"?[264]
+
+"God damn all foreigners!"_--Interrupter at one of Mr. Gladstone's
+early meetings at Oxford_
+
+
+When I was in Hokkaido sheep were being experimented with at different
+places on the mainland, investigators and sheep buyers had gone off to
+Australia, New Zealand and South America, and a Tokyo Sheep Bureau of
+two dozen officials had been established. Great hopes were built on a
+few hundred sheep in Hokkaido.[265] But I noticed that Government farm
+sheep were under cover on a warm September day. Also I heard of
+trouble with two well-known sheep ailments. There was talk
+nevertheless of the day when there would be a million sheep in
+Hokkaido, perhaps three millions. On the mainland I also met high
+officials and enthusiastic prefectural governors who dreamed dreams of
+sheep farming in Old Japan, where land is costly, farms small,
+agriculture intensive, grazing ground to seek, and farmland
+necessarily damp. This sheep keeping is conceived as one animal or
+perhaps two on a holding as rather unhappy by-products. The notion is
+that the wool and manure of a sheep would meet the expense of its keep
+and that the mutton would be profit. Hopes of an extension of sheep
+breeding resting on such a basis seem to be extravagant. One high
+authority told me that it would take twenty or thirty years to develop
+sheep keeping.
+
+The sheep at present in Japan are not living in natural conditions.
+They feed on cultivated crops. Sheep could hardly live a week on
+natural Japanese pasture. The wild herbage is full of the sharp bamboo
+grass. In the summer much of the eatable herbage dries up. Not only
+must sheep endure the summer heat and insects; they must survive the
+trying rainy season. But they must do more than merely endure and
+survive. In order to produce good wool it is necessary that they shall
+be in good condition. The hair of one's head immediately shows the
+effect of imperfect nutrition or unhealthy conditions, and it is the
+same with the wool on the back of the sheep.
+
+It is said that the quality of the wool on the sheep kept in Japan
+depreciates. However this may be, it is plain that sheep breeding must
+be conducted on a large scale in order to produce wool in commercial
+quantities and of even quality. Some notion of the land normally
+required for sheep may be estimated from the fact that Australian
+pasture carries no more than four sheep per acre.[266]
+
+An improvement of Japanese herbage sufficient to fit it for sheep
+would be a heavy task even in small areas. It is not only the herbage
+but the rocks below it which are all wrong for sheep, if we are to
+judge by the geological formations on which sheep flourish in the
+West. If the sheep were put on cultivated land[267] or placed on straw
+as I saw them in Hokkaido there would be serious risks of foot rot. No
+doubt there would also be insect pests to control. If Japan set up
+sheep keeping she would no doubt have to devise her own special breed
+of sheep, for the well-known Western breeds are artificial products.
+Probably the experiments which are being made in China with sheep at
+an earlier stage of development are proceeding on the right lines. I
+have already spoken of the fact that a Japanese taste for mutton has
+yet to be cultivated.
+
+This is a formidable list of difficulties confronting the new
+Governmental Sheep Bureau. No doubt much may be done by a large
+expenditure of money and much patience. The Japanese have wrought
+marvels before by spending money and having a large stock of patience.
+Account must also be taken of the spirit reflected in the speech made
+to me by a Japanese friend when I read the foregoing paragraph to
+him:
+
+"But we are keen to try. If there were no necessity to prepare for
+war, when we must have wool for soldiers, sailors and officials, we
+might rely on Australia and elsewhere and hope to improve the inferior
+and dirty Chinese wool. But thinking of the disease prevailing in
+Northern Manchuria and of service needs, we want to try sheep keeping
+with some subsidy in Hokkaido and on the mainland in Northern Aomori
+where there is much dry wild land and the farmers are often
+miserable--there are villages where the people do not wash. We might
+provide some of the wool needed by Japan. We have practically met our
+needs in sugar, though of course our needs are small compared with
+England and America."
+
+Let us turn from the sheep problem to the factory problem. What are
+the difficulties of the woollen industry? In the first place, as we
+have seen, there is no home supply of wool worth mentioning. Further,
+there is the intricacy of woollen manufacture. Cotton machinery has
+been brought to such a pitch of perfection for every operation and
+there are in existence so many technical manuals for every department
+of cotton manufacture that a certain standardisation of output is not
+difficult. The problem of woollen manufacture is much more
+complicated. The output cannot be similarly standardised, and there
+are many directions in which originality, self-reliance and experience
+come into play decisively.
+
+In the woollen districts of Great Britain the operatives are people
+who have been in the trade all their lives, whose parents and
+grandparents have been in the trade before them. There is not only an
+hereditary aptitude but an hereditary interest. There is not only an
+individual interest but an interest of the whole community. The
+welfare of a town or city is wrapped up in the woollen industry. This
+is not so in Japan. The mill workers in the Tokyo prefecture, for
+example, come from remote parts of Japan, and the girls--and
+three-quarters of the employees of the woollen industry are girls--are
+merely on a three-years contract. The girls arrive absolutely
+inexperienced. Even in England it is considered that it takes two or
+three years to make a worker skilful. Within the three-years period
+for which the Japanese mill girls or their parents contract, as many
+as 30 per cent. leave the mills and, appalling fact, from 20 to 25 per
+cent. die.[268] Not more than 10 per cent. renew their three-years
+contract. Therefore there is, at present at any rate, little real
+skilled labour in the factories. Another difficulty is the absence of
+skilful wool sorters. Even before the War a good wool sorter commanded
+in England from £3 to £4 a week. One of the things which hampers the
+Japanese woollen industry is the prevalence of illness at the
+factories. They must have, in consequence, about 25 per cent. more
+labour than is needed.
+
+Generally one would say that the industry at its present stage is not
+only weak on the labour side,[269] but, where it is efficient, is
+skilful rather in imitation than in original design. Everything
+produced is an imitation of foreign designs. That is not an unnatural
+state of things, however, at the commencement of a new industry.
+
+With regard to the old complaint of Japanese goods failing to come up
+to sample, the shortcoming is often due not to intentional dishonesty
+but simply to inability to produce a uniform product. In one factory
+an order had to be filled by bringing together work from 300 different
+places. The first delivery of the cloth produced for the Russian army
+was like the sample, but the later deliveries, though of excellent
+material, were not, for the simple reason that the precise raw
+materials for the required blending did not exist in Japan.
+
+One of the marvels of the industry is the high prices obtained in
+Japan. The best winter serge was selling in England before the War at
+8s. a yard. The Japanese price for winter serge was from 5 to 6 yen.
+Before the War it was possible to import cloth at 50 per cent. less
+than the local rates. Nevertheless there seemed to be a market for
+everything. Japanese cloth lacks finish but it is made out of good
+materials and will wear. The factories are compelled to use a better
+quality of material in order to get anywhere near the appearance of
+imported goods. A foreign manufacturer, "owing to his skill in
+manufacture," as it was once explained to me, may produce a cloth of a
+certain quality containing only 10 per cent. new wool: the Japanese
+manufacturer, in order to produce a comparable article must use 30 per
+cent. new wool. Obviously this means that the Japanese factory must
+charge higher prices.
+
+In considering the position of the industry it is natural to ask how
+it would be affected if the Japanese factories were able to draw more
+largely upon Manchuria for wool. The answer is that the sheep in
+Manchuria at present yield what is called "China" wool, which is
+suitable only for blankets and coarse cloth.
+
+To some who feel a sympathy for Japan in her present stage of
+industrial development and are inclined to take long views it may seem
+a pity that she should contemplate making such a radical change in her
+national habits as is represented by the demand for woollen materials
+and for meat. Japanese dress, easy, hygienic and artistic though it
+is, and admirably suited for wearing in Japanese dwellings, is ill
+adapted for modern business life, not to speak of factory conditions.
+But it has not yet been demonstrated that Japan is under the necessity
+of substituting, to so large an extent as she evidently contemplates
+doing, woollen for cotton and silk clothing, and Western clothing for
+her own characteristic raiment.[270] The cotton padded garment and bed
+cover are both warm and clean. It is odd that this new demand on the
+part of Japan for woollen material should coincide with movements in
+Europe and America to utilise more cotton, for underclothing at any
+rate. There is undoubtedly a hygienic case of a certain force against
+wool. The same is true of meat. It may well be that the dietary of
+many Japanese has not been sufficiently nutritious, but much of the
+meat-eating which is now being indulged in seems to be due more to an
+aping of foreign ways than to physical requirements. The more meat
+Japan eats and the more she dresses herself in wool the more she
+places herself under the control of the foreigner.[271] Whatever
+degree of success may attend sheep breeding within the limits imposed
+upon it by physical conditions in Japan, the raw material of the
+woollen industry must be mostly a foreign product. As far as meat is
+concerned, it is difficult to believe that while the agriculture of
+Japan is based upon rice production there is room for the production
+of meat on a large scale. If the meat and wool are to be produced in
+Manchuria and Mongolia we shall see what we shall see. The
+significance of the experiment of the Manchuria Railway Company since
+1913 in crossing merino and Mongolian sheep and the work which is
+being done on the sheep runs of Baron Okura in Mongolia cannot be
+overlooked. Ten years hence it will be interesting to examine
+industrially and socially the position of the woollen industry[272]
+and the animal industry in Japan and on the mainland, and the net gain
+that the country has made.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[264] _Yofuku_ means foreign clothes.
+
+[265] In 1920 there were 8,219 sheep in Japan, including 945 in
+Hokkaido.
+
+[266] A sheep produces about 7 lbs. of wool in the year. But this is
+the unscoured weight. In Japan, an expert assured me, it would not
+reach more than 56 to 60 per cent. when scoured.
+
+[267] "To-day sheep cannot, be kept on arable to leave any reward to
+the farmer."--_Country Life_, August 20, 1921.
+
+[268] See Appendix LXIX.
+
+[269] See Appendix LXX.
+
+[270] An immense amount of silk is used in Japanese men's clothing.
+The kimono, except the cheaper summer kind and the bath kimono
+_(yukata)_, which are cotton, is silk. So are the _hakama_ (divided
+skirt) and the _haori_ (overcoat). Japanese women's clothes are
+largely silk. The dress of working people is cotton, but even they
+have some silk clothing.
+
+[271] "By degrees they proceeded to all the stimulations of banqueting
+which was indeed part of their bondage."--Tacitus on the Britons under
+Roman influence.
+
+[272] The industry has already made on the London market an impression
+of competence in some directions. For production and exports, see
+Appendix LXX.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+THE PROBLEMS OF JAPAN
+
+Concerning these things, they are not to be delivered but from much
+intercourse and discussion.--PLATO
+
+
+Emigrants do not willingly seek a climate worse than their own. This
+is one of the reasons why the development of Hokkaido has not been
+swifter. The island is not much farther from the mainland than
+Shikoku, but it is near, not the richest and warmest part of the
+mainland, but the poorest and the coldest. If we imagine another
+Scotland lying off Cape Wrath, at the distance of Ireland from
+Scotland, and with a climate corresponding to the northerly situation
+of such a supposititious island, we may realise how remoteness and
+climatic limitations have hindered the progress of Hokkaido.
+
+"Our mode of living is not suited to the colder climate," an
+agricultural professor said to me. "Poor emigrants do not have money
+enough to build houses with stoves and properly fitting windows."
+
+To what extent the modified farming methods rendered necessary by the
+Hokkaido climate have had a deterring effect on would-be settlers I do
+not know. It has never been demonstrated that the Japanese farmer
+prefers arduous amphibious labour to the dry-land farming in which
+most of the world's land workers are engaged; but the cultivation of
+paddy or a large proportion of paddy is his traditional way of
+farming. Rice culture also means to him the production of the crop
+which, when weather conditions favour, is more profitable than any
+other. In Hokkaido, as we have seen, the remunerative kind of
+agriculture is mixed farming, and, in a large part of the country,
+rice cannot be grown at all. Against objections to Hokkaido on the
+ground of the strangeness of its farming may probably be set,
+however, the cheapness of land there.
+
+An undoubted hindrance to the colonisation of Hokkaido has been land
+scandals and land grabbing. Many of what the late Lord Salisbury
+called the "best bits" are in the hands of big proprietors or
+proprietaries. Some large landowners no doubt show public spirit. But
+their class has contrived to keep farmers from getting access to a
+great deal of land which, because of its quality and nearness to
+practicable roads and the railway, might have been worked to the best
+advantage. In various parts of Japan I heard complaints. "The land
+system in Hokkaido," one man in Aichi said to me, "is so queer that
+land cannot be got by the families needing it, I mean good land."
+Again in Shikoku I was assured that "the most desirable parts of the
+Hokkaido are in the hands of capitalists who welcome tenants only." In
+more than one part of northern Japan I was told of emigrants to
+Hokkaido who had "returned dissatisfied." A charge made against the
+large holder of Hokkaido land is that he is an absentee and a city man
+who lacks the knowledge and the inclination to devote the necessary
+capital to the development of his estate. Of late the rise in the
+value of timber has induced not a few proprietors to interest
+themselves much more in stripping their land of trees than in
+developing its agricultural possibilities.
+
+The development of Hokkaido may also have been slowed down to some
+extent by a lower level of education among the people than is
+customary on most of the mainland, by a rougher and less skilful
+farming than is common in Old Japan and by the existence of a residuum
+which would rather "deal" or "let George do it" or cheat the Ainu than
+follow the laborious colonial life. But no cause has been more potent
+than a lack of money in the public treasury. I was told that for five
+years in succession Tokyo had cut down the Hokkaido budget. Necessary
+public work and schemes for development have been repeatedly stopped.
+At a time when the interests of Hokkaido demand more farmers and there
+is a general complaint of lack of labour, at a time when there are
+persistent pleas for oversea expansion, there are in Japan twice or
+thrice as many people applying for land in the island as are granted
+entry. The blunt truth is that the State has felt itself compelled to
+spend so much on military and naval expansion that the claims of
+Hokkaido for the wherewithal for better roads, more railway line and
+better credit have often been put aside.[273]
+
+One thing is certain, that slow progress in the development of
+Hokkaido gives an opening to the critics of Japan who doubt whether
+her need for expansion beyond her own territory is as pressing as is
+represented by some writers. However this may be, Hokkaido is stated
+to take only a tenth of the overplus of the population of Old Japan.
+The number of emigrants in 1913 was no larger than the number in 1906.
+A usual view in Hokkaido is that the island can hold twice as many
+people as it now contains. "When 3,625,000 acres are brought into
+cultivation," says an official publication, "Hokkaido will be able
+easily to maintain 5,000,000 inhabitants on her own products."
+
+Very much of what has been achieved in Hokkaido has been done under
+the stimulating influence of the Agricultural College, now the
+University. The northern climate seems to be conducive to mental
+vigour in both professors and students. If in moving about Hokkaido
+one is conscious of a somewhat materialistic view of progress it may
+be remembered that an absorption in "getting on" is characteristic of
+colonists and their advisers everywhere. It is not high ideals of life
+but bitter experience of inability to make a living on the mainland
+which has brought immigrants to Hokkaido. As time goes on, the rural
+and industrial development may have a less sordid look.[274] At
+present the visitor who lacks time to penetrate into the fastnesses
+of Hokkaido and enjoy its natural beauties brings away the unhappy
+impression which is presented by a view of man's first assault on the
+wild.
+
+But he must still be glad to have seen this distant part of Japan. He
+finds there something stimulating and free which seems to be absent
+from the older mainland. It is possible that when Hokkaido shall have
+worked out her destiny she may not be without her influence on the
+development of Old Japan. Those of the settlers who are reasonably
+well equipped in character, wits and health are not only making the
+living which they failed to obtain at home; they are testing some
+national canons of agriculture. Face to face with strangers and with
+new conditions, these immigrants are also examining some ideals of
+social life and conduct which, old though they are, may not be
+perfectly adapted to the new age into which Japan has forced herself.
+One evening in Hokkaido I saw a lone cottage in the hills. At its door
+was the tall pole on which at the _Bon_ season the lantern is hung to
+guide the hovering soul of that member of the family who has died
+during the year. The settler's lantern, steadily burning high above
+his hut, was an emblem of faith that man does not live by gain alone
+which the hardest toil cannot quench. In whatever guise it may express
+itself, it is the best hope for Hokkaido and Japan.
+
+During my stay in the island I had an opportunity of meeting some of
+the most influential men from the Governor downwards; also several
+interesting visitors from the mainland. We often found ourselves
+getting away from Hokkaido's problems to the general problems of rural
+life.
+
+Of the good influences at work in the village, the first I was once
+more assured, was "popular education and school ethics, a real
+influence and blessing." The second was "the disciplinary training of
+the army for regularity of conduct." ("The influence of officers on
+their young soldiers is good, and they give them or provide them with
+lectures on agricultural subjects and allow them time to go in
+companies to experimental farms.")
+
+Someone spoke of "the influence of the religion of the past." "The
+religion of the past!" exclaimed an elderly man; "in half a dozen
+prefectures it may be that religion is a rural force, but elsewhere in
+the Empire there is a lack of any moral code that takes deep root in
+the head. After all Christians are more trustworthy than people
+drinking and playing with geisha."
+
+On the other hand a prominent Christian said: "There is a weakness in
+our Christians, generally speaking. There is an absence of a sound
+faith. The native churches have no strong influence on rural life.
+There is often a certain priggishness and pride in things foreign in
+saying, 'I am a Christian.'"
+
+Another man spoke in this wise: "I have been impressed by some of the
+following of Uchimura. They seem ardent and real. But I have also been
+attracted by strength of character in members of various sects of
+Christians. The theology and phraseology of these men may be curious,
+may be in many respects behind the times, but their religion had a
+beautiful aspect.[275] Many of our people have got something of
+Christian ethics, but are no church-goers. Some Japanese try to
+combine Christian principles with old Japanese virtues; others with
+some soul supporting Buddhistic ideas. We must have Christianity if
+only to supply a great lack in our conception of personality. People
+who have accepted Christianity show so much more personality and so
+much more interest in social reform."
+
+When we returned to agricultural conditions, one who spoke with
+authority said: "In Old Japan the agricultural system has become
+dwarfed. The individual cannot raise the standard of living nor can
+crops be substantially increased. The whole economy is too small.[276]
+The people are too close on the ground. They must spread out to
+north-eastern Japan, to Hokkaido, Korea and Manchuria. The population
+of Korea could be greatly increased. There is an immense opening in
+Manchuria, which is four or five times the area of the Japanese Empire
+and sparsely populated. There is also Mongolia."[277]
+
+"But in Korea," one who had been there said, "there are the Koreans,
+an able if backward people, to be considered--they will increase with
+the spread of our sanitary methods among a population which was
+reduced by a primitive hygiene and by maladministration. And as to our
+people going to the mainland of Asia, we do not really like to go
+where rice is not the agricultural staple, and we prefer a warm
+country. In Formosa, where it is warm, we are faced by the competition
+of the Chinese at a lower standard of life.[278] The perfect places
+for Japanese are California, New Zealand and Australia, but the
+Americans and Australasians won't have us. I do not complain; we do
+not allow Chinese labour in Japan. But we think that we might have had
+Australasia or New Zealand if we had not been secluded from the world
+by the Tokugawa régime, and so allowed you British to get there first.
+It is not strange that some of our dreamers should grudge you your
+place there, should cherish ideas of expansion by walking in your
+footsteps. But it is wisdom to realise that we cannot do to-day what
+might have been done centuries ago or make history repeat itself for
+our benefit. It is wiser to seek to reduce the amount of
+misapprehension, prejudice and--shall I say?--national feeling in
+Japan and America and Australasia, and try to procure ultimate
+accommodation for us all in that way. But not too much reduce,
+perhaps, for, in the present posture of the world, nationalist
+feeling and--we do not want premature inter-marriage--racial feeling
+are still valuable to mankind."
+
+A speaker who followed said: "Remember to our credit how our area
+under cultivation in Old Japan continually increases.[279] Bear in
+mind, too, what good use we have made of the land we have been able to
+get under cultivation--so many thousand more _chō_ of crops than there
+are _chō_ of land, due, of course, to the two or three crops a year
+system in many areas."[280]
+
+"As for the situation the emigrants[281] leave behind them in Old
+Japan," resumed the first speaker, "the experiment should be tried of
+putting ten or so of tiny holdings[282] under one control, and an
+attempt should be made to see what improved implements and further
+co-operation[283] can effect. I suppose the thing most needed on the
+mainland is working capital at a moderate rate. Think of 900 million
+yen of farmers' debt, much of it at 12 per cent. and some of it at 20
+per cent.! I do not reckon the millions of prefectural, county and
+village debt. Of what value is it to raise the rice crop to 3 or 4
+_koku_ per _tan_ (60 or 80 bushels per acre)[284] if the moneylender
+profits most? The farmers of Old Japan are undoubtedly losing land to
+the moneyed people.[285] Every year the number of farmers owning their
+own land decreases[286] and the number of tenants increases and more
+country people go to the towns.[287] And, as an official statement
+says, 'the physical condition of the army conscripts from the rural
+districts is always superior to that of the conscripts of the urban
+districts.'"
+
+Some Western criticism of Japanese agriculture cannot be
+overlooked.[288] Criticism is naturally invited by (1) Japanese
+devotion to what is in Western eyes an exotic crop--but owing to
+exceptional water supplies, favourable climatic conditions and
+acquired skill in cultivation, the best crop for all but the extreme
+north-east of Japan;[289] (2) the small portions in which much of that
+crop is grown--of necessity; (3) the primitive implements--not
+ill-adapted, however, to a primitive cultural system; (4) the
+non-utilisation of animal or mechanical power in a large part of the
+country--due as much to physical conditions as to lack of cheap
+capital; (5) what is spoken of as "the never-ending toil"--against
+which must be set the figures I have quoted showing the number of
+farmers who do not work on an average more than 4 or 5 days a week;
+and (6) the moderate total production compared with the number of
+producers--which must be considered in reference to the object of
+Japanese agriculture and in relation to a lower standard of living.
+Japanese agriculture, as we have seen, has shortcomings, many of which
+are being steadily met; but with all its shortcomings it does succeed
+in providing, for a vast population per square _ri_, subsistence in
+conditions which are in the main endurable and might be easily made
+better.
+
+Paddy adjustment has clearly shown that paddies above the average size
+are more economically worked than small ones, but these adjusted
+paddies are on the plains and a large proportion of Japanese paddies
+have had to be made on uneven or hilly ground where physical
+conditions make it impossible for these rice fields to be anything
+else than small and irregular. Japanese agriculture is what it is and
+must largely remain what it is because Japan is geologically and
+climatically what it is, and because the social development of a large
+part of Japan is what it is. Comparisons with rice culture in Texas,
+California and Italy are usually made in forgetfulness of the fact
+that the rice fields there are generally on level fertile areas, in
+America sometimes on virgin soil. In Japan rice culture extends to
+poor unfavourable land because the people want to have rice
+everywhere.[290] The Japanese have cultivated the same paddies for
+centuries, Some American rice land is thrown out of cultivation after
+a few years. In fertile localities the Japanese get twice the average
+crop. It must also be remembered that Japanese paddies often produce
+two crops, a crop of rice and an after-crop. Japanese technicians are
+well acquainted with Texan, Californian and Italian rice culture, and
+Japanese have tried rice production both in California and Texas.
+
+"They talk of Texan and Italian rice culture," said one man who had
+been abroad on a mission of agricultural investigation, "but I found
+the comparative cost of rice production greater in Texas than in
+Japan. Some Japanese farmers who went to Texas were overcome by weeds
+because of dear labour. In Italian paddies, also, I saw many more
+weeds than in ours. It is rational, of course, for Americans and
+Italians to use improved machinery, for they have expensive labour
+conditions, but we have cheap labour. The Texans have large paddies
+because their land is cheap, but ours is dear. In these big paddies
+the water cannot be kept at two or three inches, as with us. It is
+necessarily five inches or so, too deep, and the soil temperature
+falls and they lose on the crops what they gain by the use of
+machinery. Further, it must be remembered that we are not producing
+our rice for export. It is a special kind for ourselves, which we
+like;[291] but foreigners would just as soon have any other sort. We
+have no call, therefore, to develop our rice culture in the same
+degree as our sericulture, which rests mainly on a valuable oversea
+trade."
+
+"On this general question of improvement of implements and methods,"
+said another member of our company, "we must use machinery and
+combine farming management when industrial progress drives us to it;
+but why try to do it before we are compelled? Concerning horses, the
+difficulty which some farmers have in using them is the difficulty of
+feeding them economically. Concerning cereals, our consumption is not
+less than that of Germany, but Germany imports more than twice the
+cereals we do, so there would seem to be something to be said for our
+system."
+
+[Illustration: CUTTING GRASS]
+
+"Some revolutionising of Japanese farming is necessary, in combined
+threshing, for instance," the expert who had opened our discussion
+said. "This combined threshing is now seen in several districts, and
+combined threshing will be extended. But there is the objection to the
+threshing machine that it breaks the straw and thus spoils it for
+farmers' secondary industries. It should not be impossible to invent
+some way of avoiding this, but the threshing machine is also too heavy
+for narrow roads between paddies. It is difficult to deliver the crops
+to the machine in sufficient bulk. Necessity may show us ways, but
+small threshing machines are not so economical. Of course we must have
+much more co-operative buying of rural requirements, and certainly
+there is room in some places for the Western scythe made smaller, but
+our people, as you have seen, are dexterous with their extremely
+sharp, short sickle, and fodder is often cut on rather difficult
+slopes, from which it is not easy to descend loaded, with a scythe.
+Some foreigners who speak so positively about machinery for paddies,
+and for, I suppose, the sloping uplands to which our arable farming is
+relegated, do not really grasp the physical conditions of our
+agriculture. And they are always forgetting the warm dankness of our
+climate. They forget, too, that implements for hand use are more
+efficient than machinery, and, if labour be cheap, more economical.
+They forget above all that we are of necessity a small-holdings
+country."
+
+Is it such a bad thing to be a small-holdings country? Does the rural
+life of countries which are pre-eminently small-holding, like Denmark
+and Holland, compare so unfavourably with that of England? I wonder
+how much money has been sunk--most of it lost--during the past quarter
+of a century in attempts to increase small holdings in England.
+
+"Because we have much remote, wild, uncultivated land," the speaker I
+have interrupted continued, "that is not to say that most of it, often
+at a high elevation, or sloping, or poor in quality, as well as
+remote, can be profitably broken up for paddies. Much of this land can
+be and ought to be utilised in one fashion or another, but we have
+found some experiments in this direction unprofitable, even when rice
+was dear. But it may be said, Why break up this wild land into
+paddies? Why not have nice grassy slopes for cattle as in Switzerland?
+But our experts have tried in vain to get grass established. The heavy
+rains and the heat enable the bamboo grass to overcome the new fodder
+grass we have sown. The first year the fodder grass grows nicely, but
+the second year the bamboo grass conquers. In Hokkaido and Saghalien
+we are conquering bamboo grass with fodder grass. The advice to go in
+largely for fruit ignores the fact of our steamy damp climate, which
+encourages sappy growth, disease and those insects which are so
+numerous in Japan. We cannot do much more than grow for home
+consumption."
+
+"The advice to draw the cultivation of our small farms under group
+control has not always been profitable when followed by landlords,"
+one who had not yet spoken remarked. "They have not always made more
+when they farmed themselves than when they let their land. All the
+world over, land workers do better for themselves than for others.
+Proposals further to capitalise farming which, with a rural exodus
+already going on, would have the effect of driving people off the land
+who are employed on it healthily and with benefit to the social
+organism, do not seem to offer a more satisfactory situation for
+Japan. No country has shown itself less afraid of business combination
+than Japan, and the world owes as much to industry as to agriculture,
+and I am not in the least afraid of machinery and capital; but
+production is not our final aim. Production is to serve us; we are not
+to serve production. If people can live in self-respect on the land
+they are better off in many ways than if they are engaged in industry
+in some of its modern developments."
+
+"The world is also better off," my interpreter in his notes records me
+as saying when I was pressed to state my opinion. "The day will come
+when the uselessness and waste of a certain proportion of industry and
+commerce will be realised, when the saving power of an export and
+import trade in unnecessary things will be questioned and when the
+cultivator of the ground will be restored to the place in social
+precedence he held in Old Japan. With him will rank the other real
+producers in art, literature and science, industry and commerce. The
+industrialisation of the West and its capitalistic system have not
+been so perfectly successful in their social results for it to be
+certain that Japan should be hurried more quickly in the industrial
+and capitalistic direction than she is travelling already.[292] If she
+takes time over her development, the final results may be better for
+her and for the world. I have not noticed that Japanese rural people
+who have departed from a simple way of life through the acquirement of
+many farms or the receipt of factory dividends have become worthier.
+On the question of the alleged over-population of rural Japan, one
+Japanese investigator has suggested to me that as many as 20 per
+cent. could be advantageously spared from agricultural labour. But he
+was not himself an agriculturist or an ex-agriculturist. He was not
+even a rural resident. Further, he conceived his 20 per cent. as
+entering rural rather than urban industry.
+
+"A great deal of afforestation and better use of a large proportion of
+forest land, much more co-operation for borrowing and buying, improved
+implements where improved implements can be profitably used, animal
+and mechanical power where they can be employed to advantage, paddy
+adjustment to the limit of the practical, more intelligent manuring, a
+wider use of better seeds,[293] the bringing in of new land which is
+capable of yielding a profit when an adequate expenditure is made upon
+it, a mental and physical education which is ever improving--all
+these, joined to better ways of life generally, are obvious avenues of
+improvement, in Northern Japan particularly, not to speak of
+Hokkaido.[294] But it is not so much the details of improvement that
+seem urgently to need attention. It is the general principles. I have
+been assured again and again by prefectural governors and agricultural
+experts--and in talking to a foreigner they would hardly be likely to
+exaggerate--that considered plans for the prevention of disastrous
+floods, for the breaking up of new land, for the provision of loans
+and for the development of public intelligence and well-being were
+hindered in their areas by lack of money alone. The degree to which
+rural improvements, with which the best interests of Japan now and in
+the future are bound up, may have been arrested and may still be
+arrested by erroneous conceptions of national progress and of the ends
+to which public energy and public funds[295] may be wisely devoted is
+a matter for patriotic reflection.[296] No impression I have gained
+in Japan is sharper than an impression of ardent patriotism. For good
+or ill, patriotism is the outstanding Japanese virtue. What some
+patriots here and elsewhere do not seem to realise, however, is what a
+quiet, homely, everyday thing true patriotism is. The Japanese, with
+so many talents, so many natural and fortuitous advantages, and with
+opportunities, such as no other nation has enjoyed, of being able to
+profit by the social, economic and international experience of States
+that have bought their experience dearly and have much to rue, cannot
+fairly expect to be lightly judged by contemporaries or by history. If
+the course taken by Japan towards national greatness is at times
+uncertain, it is due no doubt to the fascinations of many
+will-o'-the-wisps. There can be one basis only for the enlightened
+judgment of the world on the Japanese people: the degree to which they
+are able to distinguish the true from the mediocre and the resolution
+and common-sense with which they take their own way."
+
+"Our rural problems," a sober-minded young professor added, after one
+of those pauses which are usual in conversations in Japan, "is not a
+technical problem, not even an economic problem. It is, as you have
+realised, a sociological problem. It is bound up with the mental
+attitude of our people--and with the mental attitude of the whole
+world."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[273] A high authority assured me that 100 million yen (pre-War
+figures) could be laid out to advantage. A Japanese economist's
+comment was: "Why not touch on the extraordinary proportion of land
+owned by the Imperial Household and also by the State for military
+purposes?"
+
+[274] In driving through what seemed to be one of the best streets in
+Sapporo, I noticed that some exceptionally large houses were the
+dwellings of the registered prostitutes. Each house had a large
+ground-floor window. Before it was a barrier about a yard high which
+cleared the ground, leaving a space of about another yard. Such of the
+public as were interested were able, therefore, to peer in without
+being identified from the street, for only their legs and feet were
+visible. In Tokyo and elsewhere this exhibition of girls to the public
+has ceased. The place of the girls is taken by enlarged framed
+photographs. I found on enquiry that the Sapporo houses are so well
+organised as to have their proprietors' association. At a little town
+like Obihiro an edifice was pointed out to me containing fifty or more
+women.
+
+[275] The classification is 101,671 Protestants, 75,983 Roman
+Catholics and 36,265 Greek Church.
+
+[276] "'Spade farming' is an apt designation of the system of farming
+or rather of cultivation, for little is done in the way of raising
+stock."--PROFESSOR YOKOI.
+
+[277] See Appendix XXX.
+
+[278] But surely the basic reason against a large emigration of
+farmers and artisans to Formosa, or to Manchuria, Mongolia or Korea,
+with the intention of working at their callings, is that the standard
+of living is lower there? The chief attraction of America and
+Australasia is that the standard of living is higher. The question of
+over-population must be considered in relation to the facts in
+Appendices XXV, XXX and LXXX, and on page 331. It is not established
+that the Japanese have now, or are likely to have in the near future,
+a pressing need to emigrate.
+
+[279] See Appendix LXXII.
+
+[280] See Appendix LXXIII.
+
+[281] See Appendix LXXIV.
+
+[282] Between 1909 and 1918 the average area of holdings rose from
+1.03 to 1.09 _chō_ or from 2.52 to 2.67 acres or 1.02 to 1.08
+hectares.
+
+[283] There were in 1919 some 13,000 co-operative societies of all
+sorts. The number increases about 500 a year.
+
+[284] For rise in production per _tan_, see Appendix LXXV.
+
+[285] See Appendix LXXVI.
+
+[286] See Appendix LXXVII.
+
+[287] See Appendix LXXVIII.
+
+[288] See, for example, C.V. Sale in the _Transactions of the Society
+of Arts_, 1907, and J.M. McCaleb in the _Transactions of the Asiatic
+Society of Japan_, 1916.
+
+[289] For the question, is rice the right crop for Japan? See Appendix
+LXXIX.
+
+[290] Dr. Yahagi in an address delivered in Italy pointed out to his
+audience that Japan had 15 times as large an area under rice as Italy
+and that, while the Italian harvest ranged between 42 and 83
+hectolitres per hectare, the Japanese ranged between 55 and 130. The
+area under rice in the United States in 1920 was 1,337,000 acres and
+the yield 53,710,000 bushels. The area under rice has steadily
+increased since 1913, when it was only 25,744,000 bushels.
+
+[291] A well-informed Japanese who read this Chapter doubted the
+ability of his countrymen to distinguish between native and Korean,
+Californian or Texan rice. Saigon is another matter. See Appendix
+XXIV.
+
+[292] "Some of our statesmen," notes a Japanese reader of this
+Chapter, "are carried away by ideas of an industrial El Dorado." Such
+men have no understanding of the relation of rural Japan to the
+national welfare. They are as blind guides as the Japanese who, caught
+by the glamour of the West, threw away the artistic treasures of their
+forefathers and pulled down beautiful temples and _yashiki_. Japan has
+much to gain from a wise and just industrial system, but not a little
+of the present industrialisation is an exploitation of cheap labour, a
+destruction of craftsmanship and social obligation, and an attempt to
+cut out the foreigner by the production of rubbish.
+
+[293] The chairman of Rothamsted declares as I write that the standard
+of English farming could be raised 50 per cent. Hall and Voelcker have
+estimated that 20 million tons of farmyard manure made in the United
+Kingdom is wasted through avoidable causes.
+
+[294] For a discussion of the question of inner colonisation versus
+foreign expansion, see Appendix LXXX.
+
+[295] For figures bearing on the relative importance of agriculture,
+commerce and industry, see Appendix LXXXI. For armaments, see Appendix
+XXXIII.
+
+[296] There are many Britons who now reflect that millions which have
+gone into Mesopotamia might have been better spent by the Ministries
+of Health and Education.
+
+
+
+
+        The blessing of her sun-warmed days;
+          Her sea-spun cloak of wet;
+        Her pointing valleys, veiled in haze,
+          Where field and wood have met;
+        When we have gone our differing ways
+          These we shall not forget.
+                          L.T., in _The New East_.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDICES
+
+The sermon was bad enough, but the appendix was abominable.--MR.
+BOWDLER.
+
+
+THE INCOME OF A MINISTER OF STATE FROM THE LAND[I]. The speaker began
+by inheriting 3 _chō_ (7-1/2 acres). He farmed a _chō_ of rice field
+and about a third of a _chō_ of dry land. With rent from the part he
+let, with gains from the part he farmed and with interest on 2,000 yen
+spare capital, he had at end of the year a balance of 370 yen. With
+the money gained from year to year more and more land was bought. At
+the time of his talk with me he owned 8 _chō_. His net income, after
+deducting cost of living, was 1,200 yen (including 500 yen from the
+land that was let). In the future, when he farmed 7 _chō_ (15-1/2
+acres), he believed that his balance would be 4,500 yen, which is the
+salary of a Governor! Or was, until the rise in prices when Governors'
+salaries were raised about another 1,000 yen, with an additional
+allowance of from 600 to 400 yen in the case of some prefectures. See
+also Appendix III.
+
+
+"GETA" [II]. The _geta_ is a flat piece of hard wood, about the length
+of the foot but a little wider, with two stumpy pieces fastened
+transversely below it. The foot maintains an uncertain and, in the
+case of a novice whose big toe has not been accustomed to separation
+from its fellows, a painful hold by means of a toe strap of thick rope
+or cotton. To persons unused from childhood to the special toe grip
+and scuffle of the _geta_, it seems odd to associate with this
+difficult clattering footgear the idea of "luxury." But no pains are
+spared by the _geta_ makers in choosing fine woods and pretty cords.
+
+
+BUDGETS OF LARGE PROPERTY OWNERS [III]. Two landlords, A and B, kindly
+allowed me to look into their budgets:
+
+
+A
+                                yen
+80 _chō_ of rural land        320,000
+20 _chō_ of rural land         60,000
+20,000 _tsubo_ of city land   130,000
+Negotiable instruments        150,000
+Dwelling and furniture        150,000
+                              _______
+             Total property   810,000
+                              =======
+
+EXPENDITURE OF PAST YEAR
+
+                                yen
+House                           2,100
+Food and drink                  1,350
+Clothing                        1,000
+Social intercourse              1,500
+Public benefit                    800
+Miscellaneous                   1,000
+Taxes                           5,000
+                               ______
+                               12,750
+                               ======
+
+
+B
+
+owns 62 _chō_ 4 _tan_ and receives in rent 623 _koku_ 7 _to_. Members
+of family, 11; servants, 8.
+
+EXPENDITURE OF PAST YEAR
+
+                                                           yen
+House                                                      519
+Food and drink (18 sen each per day for members of
+  family; 13 sen each for servants)                      1,102
+Fuel                                                       156
+Light                                                       36
+Clothing                                                   770
+Education (3 middle-school boys at 20 yen per month;
+  3 primary-school boys and girls at 2 yen)                312
+Social intercourse                                         120
+Amusements (journey, 100 yen; summer trip, 231;
+  others, 50)                                              381
+Miscellaneous (servants, 480 yen; medicine, 150; other
+  things, 150)                                             780
+Donations                                                  300
+Taxes                                                    3,976
+                                                        ______
+                                                         8,451
+                                                        ======
+
+
+THE "BENJO" [IV]. I never noticed a case in which earth was thrown
+into the domestic closet tub according to Dr. Poore's system. I have
+come across attempts to use deodorisers, but the application of a
+germicide is inhibited because of the injury which would be caused to
+the crops. Farmers are chary about removing night soil which has been
+treated even with a deodoriser. I ventured to suggest more than once
+that Japanese science should be equal to evolving a deodoriser to
+which the farmer, who in Japan seems to be so easily directed, could
+have no objection. The drawback to using Dr. Poore's system is that
+the added earth would greatly increase the weight of the substance to
+be removed. There would be the same objection to the use of _hibachi_
+ash (charcoal ash), but there is not enough produced to have any
+sensible effect. The truth is that there is no lively interest in the
+question of getting rid of the stink for everyone has become
+accustomed to it. The odour from the _benjo_--the politer word is
+_habakari_--which is always indoors, though at the end of the _engawa_
+(verandah), often penetrates the house. (_Engawa_ [edge or border] is
+the passage which faces to the open; _roka_ is a passage inside a
+house between two rooms or sometimes a bridgelike passage in the open,
+connecting two separate buildings or parts of a house.) Emptying day
+is particularly trying. This much must be said, however, that the
+farmers' tubs are washed, scrubbed and sunned after every journey and
+have close-fitting lids. And primitive though the _benjo_ is, it is
+scrupulously clean. Also, if it is always more or less smelly, it is
+contrived on sound hygienic principles. There is no seat requiring an
+unnatural position. The user squats over an opening in the floor about
+2 ft. long by 6 ins. wide. This opening is encased by a simple
+porcelain fitting with a hood at the end facing the user. The top of
+the tub is some distance below the floor. In peasants' houses there is
+no porcelain fitting. Manure is so valuable in Japan that farmers
+whose land adjoins the road often build a _benjo_ for the use of
+passers-by. Although the traveller in Japan has much to endure from
+the unpleasant odour due to the thrifty utilisation of excreta, the
+Japanese deserve credit for the fact that their countryside is never
+fouled in the disgusting fashion which proves many of our rural folk
+to be behind the primitive standard of civilisation set up in
+Deuteronomy (chap, xxiii. 13). The Western rural sociologist is not
+inclined to criticise the sanitary methods of Japan. He is too
+conscious of the neglect in the West to study thoroughly the grave
+question of sewage disposal in relation to the needs of our crops and
+the cost of nitrogenous fertilisers. See also Appendix XX.
+
+
+AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS [V]. In Mr. Yamasaki's school there was dormitory
+accommodation for 200 youths, some 40 lived in teachers' houses,
+another 15 were in lodgings, and 45 came daily from their parents'
+homes. Lads were admitted from 14 to 16 and the course was for 3
+years. The students worked 30 hours weekly indoors and the rest of
+their time outside. Upper and lower grade agricultural schools number
+280 with 23,000 students. In addition there are 7,908 agricultural
+continuation schools with more than 430,000 pupils. The ratio of
+illiteracy in Japan for men of conscription age (that is, excluding
+old people and young people), which had been over 5 per cent. up to
+1911, was reported to be only 2 per cent. in 1917.
+
+
+CRIME [VI]. In 1916 the chief offences in Japan were:
+
+Dealt with at police station  445,502
+Gambling and lotteries         81,649
+Larceny                        81,063
+Fraud and usurpation           49,772
+Assaults                       19,022
+Robbery                        10,383
+Arson                           9,533
+Accidental assaults             3,277
+Obscenity                       2,796
+Wilful injury                   2,032
+Murder                          1,886
+Abortion                        1,252
+Abduction                         907
+Rioting                           813
+Official disgrace                 481
+Military and naval                387
+Desertion                         315
+Forgery                           307
+Coining                           206
+
+
+PROSTITUTES [VII]. The chief of police was good enough to let me have
+a copy of the form to be filled up by girls desiring to enter the
+houses in the prefecture. It is under nine heads: 1. The reason for
+adopting the profession. 2. Age. 3. Permission of head of household.
+If permission is not forthcoming, reason why. 4. If a minor, proof of
+permission. 5. House at which the girl is going to "work." 6. Home
+address. 7. Former means of getting a living. 8. Whether prostitute
+before. If so, particulars. 9. Other details.
+
+When I was in Japan there were reputed to be about 50,000 _joro_
+(prostitutes), about half that number of geisha and about 35,000
+"waitresses."
+
+
+PHILANTHROPIC AGENCIES [VIII]. In 1917 the number of paupers, tramps
+and foundlings relieved by the State did not exceed 10,000. The number
+of institutions was 730 (of which 40 were run by foreigners), with the
+expenditure of about 5-1/2 million yen.
+
+
+CHANGES IN RURAL STATUS [IX]. It seemed that during 47 years 18
+tenants had become peasant proprietors, 14 peasant proprietors had
+become landowners (that is men who make their living by letting land
+rather than by working it), 8 tenants had stepped straightway into the
+position of landowners, 7 landowners had fallen to the grade of
+peasant proprietors and 7 more to that of tenants, while 114
+householders had changed their callings or had gone to Hokkaido.
+
+
+HOURS OF WORK PER DAY [X]. One of these villages showed that during
+January and February it worked 6 hours, during March and April 8
+hours, from May to August 12-1/2 hours, during September and October
+9-1/2 hours, and during November and December 9 hours. There was a
+further record of labour at night. In January and February it worked
+from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., during March and April and September and
+October from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. and in November and December from 7
+p.m. to 10 p.m. As in the period from May to August inclusive the day
+working hours were from 5 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., there then was no night
+labour.
+
+
+DILIGENT PEOPLE AND OTHERS [XI]. The adults of the village were
+classified as follows: Diligent people, men 294, women 260; average
+workers, men 270, women 236; other people, men 242, women 191. One
+supposes that, in considering the women's activities, all that was
+estimated was the number of hours spent in agricultural work or in
+remunerative employment in the evening.
+
+
+FARM AREAS AND DAYS WORKED IN THE YEAR [XII]. The information
+concerned three typical peasant proprietors, A, B and C, living in the
+same county. The areas of their land are given in _tan_:
+
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  |Where farming |Paddy |Dry |Homestead |Rented  |Children |Parents |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+A |In hills      |6     |3   |1         |  --    |3        |2       |
+B |On plain      |6.6   |2.6 |.5        |2 paddy |3        |2       |
+C |Near town     |6     |4   |1         |  --    |3        |-       |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Next we are told the number of days that not only A, B and C but their
+wives and their parents worked and did not work during the year:
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
+             |            |Domestic |National   |        |Remaining
+             |Agriculture |Work     |Holidays & |Illness |Days
+             |            |         |Festivals  |        |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
+         {A  |254         | 28      |25         | 6      |52
+Husbands {B  |239         | 37      |25         | -      |64
+         {C  |231         | 49      |19         | 2      |64
+             |            |         |           |        |
+         {A  |239         | 54      | 7         | -      |64
+Wives    {B  |150         |128      |26         | -      |64
+         {C  |141         |174      | 9         | -      |41
+             |            |         |           |        |
+         {A  |144         | 47      |85         |18      |72
+Fathers  {B  |205         | 69      |40         | -      |51
+         {C  | -          | -       | -         | -      | -
+             |            |         |           |        |
+         {A  | 15         |324      | 6         | -      |20
+Mothers  {B  | 82         |220      |23         | -      |41
+         {C  | -          | -       | -         | -      | -
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+It will be seen that men only were ill! [See next page.]
+
+For average of hours worked elsewhere, see page 232 and page 237.
+
+
+FARMERS' EARNINGS AND SPENDINGS [XIII]. If the reader should feel that
+the following details are lacking in comprehensiveness or
+definiteness, he should understand that reports of a national and
+authoritative character on the economic condition of the farmer were
+not available. There existed certain reports of the Ministry of
+Agriculture, but they were subjected to criticism. The National
+Agricultural Association had set on foot an elaborate enquiry as to
+the condition of the "middle farmer," but it was suggested that too
+much reliance was placed on arithmetical calculations and too little
+on known facts. I have had to rely, therefore, on official and private
+investigations made in various prefectures and villages, and I give a
+selection for what they are worth. Of the general condition of the
+agricultural population the reader is offered the impressions recorded
+in my different Chapters.
+
+INCOMES AND EXPENDITURES OF PEASANT PROPRIETORS.--
+
+The incomes and expenditures of the three households referred to in
+Appendix XII were:
+
+-----------------------------------------
+    |Income |Expenditure |Balance in hand
+-----------------------------------------
+    |yen    |yen         |yen
+  A |477    |449         |28
+  B |915    |838         |77
+  C |971    |703         |68
+-----------------------------------------
+
+HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURES.--The household expenditures of the three
+families were, in yen:
+
+-------------------------------------------
+                    |A      |B      |C
+-------------------------------------------
+                    |yen    |yen    |yen
+Food                |192.76 |216.64 |189.57
+House               |  2.32 |  2.24 |  1.20
+Clothes             | 18.72 | 15.16 | 10.08
+Fuel                | 12.72 | 13.53 | 21.00
+Tools and furniture | 10.97 |160.18 |  1.66
+Social intercourse  |  9.58 |  --   |  6.05
+Education           |  1.56 |  --   |  4.15
+Amusement           |  3.30 |  2.03 | 18.00
+Unforeseen          |  7.85 | 13.72 | 22.33
+Miscellaneous       |  6.43 |  7.71 | 11.15
+                    |-------|-------|------
+                    |266.21 |431.21 |285.19
+-------------------------------------------
+
+It will be observed that the expenditure of B under the
+heading of furniture, 160 yen, is out of all proportion with the
+expenditures of A and C, 10 yen and 1 yen respectively. This
+is due to the fact that B had to provide a bride's chest for a
+daughter.
+
+A balance sheet given me by a peasant proprietor in Aichi
+(5_tan_ of two-crop paddy and 5 _tan_ of upland) showed a balance
+in hand of 27 yen.
+
+An agricultural expert said to me, "The peasant proprietors
+are the backbone of the country, but the condition of the backbone
+is not good. The peasant proprietors can make ends meet
+only by secondary employments." The expert showed me average
+figures for 18 farmers for 1891, 1900 and 1909. The average
+land of these men was a little over a _chō_ of paddy and 5 _tan_ of
+upland and some woodland. They had spent 39, 63 and 86
+yen on artificial manures as against 100, 153 and 204 yen on
+food. The balance at the end of the year for the three years
+respectively was 27, 40 and 29 yen. "The figures reflect the
+general condition," I was told.
+
+INCOMES AND EXPENDITURES OF TENANTS.--I may also note the
+circumstances of the largest and of the smallest tenant in an Aichi
+village I visited. The largest tenant family showed a balance in hand,
+93 yen; the smallest tenant, 23 yen.
+
+The accounts of 16 tenants for 1891 showed an average sum of 3 yen in
+hand at the end of the year, for 1900 a loss of 5 yen and for 1909 a
+gain of 1 yen. These men had an average of 9 _tan_ of paddy and 2
+_tan_ of upland. The man who gave me the data said that in the
+north-east of Japan "the condition of the tenants is miserable--eating
+almost cattle food." The only bright spot for tenants was that, as
+compared with peasant proprietors, they were free to change their
+holdings and even their business.
+
+INCOMES OF TENANTS AND PEASANT PROPRIETORS (SHIDZUOKA).--One tenant,
+who pays 159 yen in rent and taxes, shows a total income of 374 yen
+and an expenditure of 538 yen, with a _net loss of 164 yen_. "Farmers
+of this class," notes the local expert on the memorandum he gave me,
+"are becoming poorer every year." This tenant spent 2 yen on medicine
+and 5 yen on tobacco. ("Nothing else for enjoyment," pencils the
+expert.) In addition to parents, a man, a woman and a girl of the
+family worked. Food cost 321 yen (cost of fish and meat, 4-1/2 yen)
+and clothing 34 yen.
+
+In a "model village," where "the farmers are always diligent," a
+small tenant's income was 508 yen and expenditure 527 yen; _loss_, 19
+_yen_. Clothes cost 95 yen and food 190 yen. (Cost of fish and meat,
+4-3/4 yen.) There was an expenditure on medicine of 1-1/2 yen and on
+tobacco and _saké_ ("only enjoyment") 10 yen.
+
+Twenty per cent, of the farmers, I was told, "lead a middle-class life
+and occupy a somewhat rational area of land." The budgets often of
+these men, who own their own land, show a _balance of 85 yen_. "If
+they were tenants they would not be in such a good condition." "We
+think the farmer ought to have 2 _chō_."
+
+BUDGETS OF FARMERS ON THE LAND OF THE HOMMA CLAN, YAMAGATA (page
+186).--A tenant had 3 _chō_ of paddy and a small piece of vegetable
+land. There lived with him his wife, two sons and the widow and child
+of the eldest son. After paying his rent he had 30 _koku_ of rice
+left. The cost of production and taxes, 100 yen or a little more, had
+to come out of that. This tenant had a debt of 250 yen.
+
+A sturdy wagoner with a sturdy horse lived with his wife and three
+children and his old mother. He hired 1 _chō_ for 28 _koku_ of rice
+and his crop was 40 _koku_. He spent 30 yen on manure and 4 yen went
+in taxes.
+
+A middle-grade farmer owned a house and a little more than 1 _chō_ and
+rented 3 _chō_ of paddy and a patch for vegetables. His rent was about
+38 _koku_. He spent 100 yen on manure and 128 yen for taxes, temple
+dues and regulation of the paddy. He employed at 2-1/2 _koku_ a man
+who lived with the family, also temporary labour for 48 days. His crop
+might be 100 _koku_ or more. He had no debt.
+
+A third man was above the middle grade of farmer. His taxes were 240
+yen and his manure bill 130 yen. His payment for paddy-field
+regulation, to continue for ten years, was 60 yen. He had three
+labourers and he also hired extra labour for 100 days. He had three
+unmarried sons of 40, 29 and 25. There were 260 yen of pensions in
+respect of the war service of one son and the death of another.
+
+INCOME OF PEASANT PROPRIETORS (HOKKAIDO).--The following statistics
+for the whole of Hokkaido are based on the experience of peasant
+proprietors. The 2-1/2 _chō_ men are rice farmers--rice farming means
+farming with rice as the principal crop. The 5-_chō_ men are engaged
+in mixed farming:
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+Farmer's|Income |  Income  | Total |  Cost of  |Cost of |Total |Balance.
+  Area  | from  |from Other|       |Cultivation|Living  |Outlay|
+        |Farming|   Work   |       |           |        |      |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+        |  yen  |    yen   |  yen  |    yen    |  yen   | yen  | yen
+2-1/2   |       |          |       |           |        |      |
+chō     |  366  |     43   |  409  |    107    |  276   | 382  |  27
+        |       |          |       |           |        |      |
+5 chō   |  441  |     33   |  474  |    119    |  301   | 423  |  52
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+It will be seen that mixed farming is the more profitable.
+
+Income of Tenants (Hokkaido).--Professor Takaoka was kind enough to
+give me the following summaries of balance sheets of tenants of
+college lands in different parts of Hokkaido in 1915. (In all cases
+the accounts have been debited with wages for the farmer's family.)
+
+Five _chō_. Income, 447 yen; _net return, 37 yen_. (Rye, wheat, oats,
+corn, soy, potatoes, grass, flax, buckwheat and rape. One horse and a
+few hens.)
+
+Five _chō_. Income, 763 yen; _net return, 58 yen_. (Rye, wheat, oats,
+rape, soy, potatoes, corn, grass, flax and onions. Three cows, one
+horse.)
+
+Ten _chō_. Income, 1,015 yen; _net return, 122 yen_. (Same crops with
+two cows and one horse and some hired labour.)
+
+Five _chō_ (peppermint on 3 _chō_). Income, 882 yen; _net return_, 93
+_yen_.
+
+Three _chō_. Income, 1,195 yen; _net return, 332 yen_. (Vegetable
+farming. 206 yen paid for labour.)
+
+Thirty _chō_. Income, 1,979 yen; _net return, 61 yen_. (Mixed farming;
+632 yen paid for labour.)
+
+Model _5-chō_ farm without rice. Made 604 yen, and 107 yen _net
+return_, farm capital being 1,487 yen. (208 yen allowed for labour,
+interest 128 yen, amortisation 27 yen, and taxes 13 yen.)
+
+Milk farmer, 12 _chō_ and 90 cattle. Income, 12,280 yen; _net return
+of 3,641 yen_.
+
+2,120 _chō_ (1,235 forest, 402 pasture, 110 artificial grass and 42
+crops; 111 cattle). Income, 66,205 yen; _net return, 1,011 yen_. (Milk
+and meat farming.)
+
+Average income and expenditure of 200 tenants of University land whose
+budgets Professor Morimoto (see Chapter XXXIV) investigated:
+
+                                                         yen
+Crops                                                   451.66
+Wages earned                                             61.33
+Horses                                                   20.09
+Poultry and eggs                                           .96
+Pigs                                                       .85
+Manure (animal, 35 _kwan_; human, 14 _koku_)             24.50
+Other income                                             29.64
+                                                        ------
+                                                        589.03
+                                                 yen
+Cultivation, etc.                               206.32
+Cost of living                                  303.33
+                                                ------
+                                                509.65
+                                                        ------
+Profit                                                   79.38
+                                                        ======
+
+The returns of capital yielded the following averages:
+
+                                                           yen
+Tenant right in respect of 5-16 _chō_                    750.82
+Buildings (32.2 _tsubo_)                                 195.95
+Clothing                                                 162.82
+Horse (average 1.23)                                     108.48
+Furniture                                                 58.47
+Implements                                                51.23
+Poultry (average 2.58)                                     1.15
+Pigs (average .12)                                          .87
+                                                       --------
+                                              Total    1,329.79
+                                                       ========
+
+
+VALUE OF NEW PADDY [XIV]. More delicious rice could be got, I was
+told, from well-fertilised barren land than from naturally fertile
+land. The first year the new paddy yielded per _tan_ an average of 1.2
+_koku_, the second 1.6, the third 2, and this fourth year the yield
+would have been 2.3 had it not been for damage by storm.
+
+
+AREAS AND CROPS OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF RICE [XV]. In 1919 there was
+grown of paddy rice 2,984,750 _chō_ (2,729,639 ordinary, 255,111
+glutinous) and of upland rice 141,365 _chō_. Total, 3,126,115 _chō_.
+The yield (husked, uncleaned) was of paddy 61,343,403 _koku_
+(ordinary, 56,438,005; glutinous, 4,905,398); of upland, 1,839,312.
+Total, 63,182,715 _koku_; value, 2,352,145,519 yen.
+
+In 1877 the area is reputed to have been 1,940,000 _chō_ with a yield
+of 24,450,000 _koku_ and in 1882 2,580,000 _chō_ with a yield of
+30,692,000 _koku_. The average of the five years 1910-14 was 3,033,000
+_chō_ with a yield of 57,006,000 _koku_; of the five years 1915-19,
+3,081,867 _chō_ with a yield of 94,817,431 _koku_.
+
+In a prefecture in south-western Japan I found that 2 _koku_ 5 _to_
+(or 2-1/2 _koku_, there being 10 _to_ in a _koku_) per _tan_ was
+common and that from 3 _koku_ to 3 _koku_ 5 _to_ was reached. "A good
+yield for 1 _tan_," says an eminent authority, "is 3 _koku_, or on the
+best fields even 4 _koku_." The average yield in _koku_ per _tan_ for
+the whole country has been (paddy-field rice only): 1882, 1.19;
+1894-8, 1.38; 1899-1903, 1.44; 1904-8, 1.57; 1909-13, 1.63; 1914-18,
+1.86; 1919, 1.99; 1920, 2.05 (ordinary, 2.06; glutinous, 1.92). Upland
+rice in 1920, 1.30 as against 1.02 in 1909. All these figures are for
+husked, uncleaned rice.
+
+
+BARLEY AND WHEAT CROPS [XVI]. The following table (average of five
+years, 1913-17) shows the yields per _tan_ of the two sorts of barley
+and of wheat and the average yield all three together in comparison
+with the rice yield (all quantities husked):
+
+                 _go_                          _go_
+Barley           1,672 | All three together    1,307
+Naked barley     1,172 | Rice                  1,808
+Wheat            1,073 |
+
+Naked barley is grown as an upland crop, as are ordinary barley and
+wheat; but it is more largely grown as a second crop in paddies than
+either barley or wheat. The barleys are chiefly used for human food
+with or without rice. Wheat is eaten in macaroni, sweetstuffs and
+bread. It is also used in considerable quantities in the manufacture
+of soy, the chief ingredient of which is beans. There was imported in
+the year 1920 wheat to the value of 28-1/2 million yen, and flour to
+the value of 3-1/4 million yen. Macaroni is largely made of buckwheat
+as well as of wheat. The other grain crop is millet, which is eaten by
+the poorest farmers. In 1918, as against 60 million _koku_ of rice,
+there were grown 5 million _koku_ of beans and peas. The crops of
+barley were 17 million, of wheat 6 million, of millet 3-1/4 million,
+and of buckwheat 3/4 million. More than a million _kwan_ of sweet
+potatoes were produced and nearly half a million of "Irish" potatoes.
+(The figures for barley and wheat are for 1919.)
+
+
+COST AND PRICE OF RICE [XVII]. The annual figures (from Aichi) for the
+years 1894 to 1915 (page 384) show the cost of producing a _tan_ of
+rice, that is the summer crop. The amounts per _tan_ are calculated on
+the basis of the expenses of a tenant who is cropping 8 _tan_. The
+totals for the winter crop are also given. The figures which appear on
+the opposite page were described to me by the farmer concerned as
+"compiled on the basis of investigations by the chairman of the
+village agricultural association and by its managers and still further
+proved and quite trustworthy." It will be seen that the value of the
+winter crop is low; a secondary employment is usually a better thing
+for the farmer. In one or two places there is a sen or so difference
+in the additions which may have been made by the transcriber from the
+Japanese original. The difference in amounts of rent is due to
+difference in fields rented and also to reduction allowed owing to bad
+crops. The difference in the income from crops is usually due to
+destruction by hail or wind.
+
+
+COST AND PRICE OF RICE (see page 383)
+
+|Year
+|      |Yield in
+|      |_koku_
+|      |      |Reserved for Rent
+|      |      |and Seeds (_koku_)
+|      |      |      |Market Price per
+|      |      |      |_koku_ (yen)
+|      |      |      |       |Gross Income including
+|      |      |      |       |Straw and Chaff,
+|      |      |      |       |not usually sold (yen)
+|      |      |      |       |       |Manures (yen)
+|      |      |      |       |       |     |Taxes and Amortisation
+|      |      |      |       |       |     |of Implements (sen)
+|      |      |      |       |       |     |    |Total Outlay (yen)
+|      |      |      |       |       |     |    |      |Net Income from Summer
+|      |      |      |       |       |     |    |      |Crop of Rice (yen)
+|      |      |      |       |       |     |    |      |       |Days of Labour on
+|      |      |      |       |       |     |    |      |       |Summer Crop of Rice
+|      |      |      |       |       |     |    |      |       |      |Net Income from
+|      |      |      |       |       |     |    |      |       |      |Winter Crop (?Barley)
+|      |      |      |       |       |     |    |      |       |      |       |Total Net
+|      |      |      |       |       |     |    |      |       |      |       |Income from
+|      |      |      |       |       |     |    |      |       |      |       |both Crops.
+|------|------|------|-------|-------|-----|----|------|-------|------|-------|-------|
+| 1894 | 2.23 | 1.05 |  7.66 |  9.81 | 2   | 21 | 2.21 |  7.60 |  2.5 |  2.51 | 10.11 |
+| 1895 | 2.13 | 1.05 |  8.09 |  8.71 | 2   | 21 | 2.26 |  6.45 | 21.5 |  2.48 |  8.92 |
+| 1896 | 1.53 |  .80 |  8.67 |  6.89 | 2.4 | 22 | 2.58 |  4.31 | 21.5 |  3.38 |  7.69 |
+| 1897 | 1.88 | 1.05 | 11.53 | 10.63 | 2.9 | 23 | 3.13 |  7.50 | 21.5 |  5.22 | 12.72 |
+| 1898 | 2.39 | 1.05 | 14.62 | 21.13 | 3.2 | 25 | 3.40 | 17.73 | 21.5 |  5.50 | 23.23 |
+| 1899 | 1.75 |  .88 | 12.05 | 11.48 | 3.8 | 30 | 4.11 |  7.37 | 21   |  2.22 |  9.99 |
+| 1900 | 2.14 | 1.05 | 11.11 | 13.24 | 4.1 | 31 | 4.40 |  8.84 | 21   |  4.22 | 13.06 |
+| 1901 | 2.10 | 1.05 | 10.53 | 12.06 | 4   | 32 | 4.35 |  7.71 | 21   |  3.87 | 11.58 |
+| 1902 | 1.86 |  .99 | 12.99 | 12.40 | 3.1 | 38 | 3.51 |  8.89 | 21   |  4.11 | 13    |
+| 1903 | 2.06 | 1.04 | 12.50 | 13.85 | 3.4 | 49 | 3.79 | 10.05 | 21   |  6    | 16.85 |
+| 1904 | 2.24 | 1.03 | 12.20 | 16    | 2.6 | 53 | 3.11 |  9.89 | 21   |  6.06 | 15.95 |
+| 1905 | 1.77 |  .99 | 13.42 | 11.60 | 2.1 | 46 | 2.55 |  9.05 | 21   |  6.67 | 15.71 |
+| 1906 | 1.96 | 1.05 | 15.15 | 15 09 | 4   | 56 | 4.61 | 10.49 | 21   |  5.79 | 16.27 |
+| 1907 | 1.98 | 1.14 | 16.39 | 16.69 | 4.4 | 42 | 4.83 | 11.84 | 21   |  8.60 | 20.43 |
+| 1908 | 2.21 | 1.14 | 14.29 | 16.80 | 5.1 | 42 | 5.54 | 11.26 | 21   | 10.79 | 22.05 |
+| 1909 | 2.27 | 1.14 | 11.63 | 14.39 | 3.7 | 99 | 4.64 |  9.75 | 21   | 11.49 | 21.24 |
+| 1910 | 2.02 | 1.14 | 14.09 | 13.37 | 4.5 | 80 | 5.27 |  8.51 | 21   | 12.41 | 20.91 |
+| 1911 | 2.22 | 1.14 | 16.67 | 19.72 | 4.4 | 78 | 5.13 | 14.59 | 21   | 13.49 | 28.08 |
+| 1912 | 2.02 |  .90 | 21.74 | 26.48 | 5.9 | 75 | 6.60 | 19.88 | 21.5 |  3.73 | 23.6  |
+| 1913 | 2.31 | 1.14 | 20.83 | 24.67 | 6.5 | 79 | 7.30 | 17.37 | 21.5 | 12.62 | 30    |
+| 1914 | 2.48 | 1.14 | 12.50 | 18.29 | 5.8 | 78 | 6.53 | 11.75 | 21.5 | 11.54 | 23.30 |
+| 1915 | 2.36 | 1.20 | 11.77 | 14.91 | 5.8 | 82 | 6.67 |  8.24 | 21.5 |  9.67 | 18.91 |
+
+This table may be supplemented by the following prices for
+(unpolished) rice in Tokyo: 1916, 13 yen 76 sen; 1917, 19 yen 84 sen;
+1918, 32 yen 75 sen; 1919, 45 yen 99 sen.
+
+
+In the spring of 1921 the League for the Prevention of Sales of Rice
+at a Sacrifice proposed that rice should not be sold under 35 yen per
+_koku_. The price passed the figure of 35 yen in July 1918. At the
+time the League's proposals were made the Ministry of Agriculture was
+quoted as stating that the cost of producing rice "is now 40 yen per
+_koku_." The accuracy of the figures on which the Ministry's estimates
+are made is frequently called in question.
+
+
+CULTIVATED AREA IN JAPAN AND GREAT BRITAIN [XVIII]. In 1919 there were
+in Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man and the
+Channel Islands) 15,808,000 acres of arable, 15,910,000 of pasture and
+13,647,000 of grazing, or a total of 45,365,000 acres out of a total
+area of 56,990,000 acres. In Japan there were 15,044,202 acres of
+paddy and of cultivated upland, 46,958,000 acres of forest and
+8,773,000 acres of waste; total 70,775,000, out of 90,880,000 acres.
+The area of the United Kingdom without Ireland is 56,990,080 acres;
+that of Japan Proper, 75,988,378 acres. The population of the United
+Kingdom without Ireland (in 1911) was 41,126,000, and of Japan Proper
+(in 1911) 51,435,000. (See also Appendix XXX.)
+
+
+HUMAN LABOUR _v_. CATTLE POWER [XIX]. The Department of Agriculture
+stated in 1921 that "from 200 to 300, sometimes more than 500 days'
+labour [of one man] are required to grow a _chō_ of rice." The area of
+paddy which is ploughed by horse or cattle power was 61.89 per cent.
+The area of upland so cultivated was only 38.97 per cent. The "average
+year's work of the ordinary adult farmer" was put at 200 days. The
+Department estimated an average man's day's work (10 hours) as
+follows:
+
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+Nature of Work          | Tools used                   |Output by one
+                        |                              | Man per Day
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+                        |                              |hectare
+Tillage of paddy        |_Kuwa_ (mattock)              | 0.06
+  "     "   "           |_Fumi-guwa_ (heavy spade)     | 0.1-0.15
+Transplanting rice      |Hand work                     | 0.07-0.1
+Weeding                 |Sickle and weeding tools      | 0.1
+Cutting the rice crop   |Sickle                        | 0.1-0.15
+Mowing grass            |Sickle (long handle)          | 0.5
+  "      "              |Scythe                        | 0.5
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+But I have never seen a scythe in use in Japan!
+
+
+MANURE [XX]. The value of the manure used in Japan in a year has been
+estimated at about 220 million yen, but for the three years ending
+1916 it averaged 241 millions, as follows:
+
+Produced or obtained by the Farmer  | Purchased
+                        yen         |                         yen
+Compost              63,500,000     | Bean cake            32,000,000
+Human waste          54,000,000     | Mixed                17,000,000
+Green manure          9,600,000     | Miscellaneous        16,000,000
+Rice chaff            5,000,000     | Sulphate of ammonia  15,000,000
+                                    | Superphosphate       12,000,000
+                                    | Fish waste           12,000,000
+
+Dr. Sato puts the artificial manure used per _tan_ at a sixth of that
+of Belgium and a quarter of that of Great Britain and Germany. See
+also Appendix IV. An agricultural expert once said to me, "Japanese
+farmer he keep five head of stock, his own family."
+
+
+SOWING OF RICE [XXI]. A common seeding time is the eighty-eighth day
+of the year according to the old calendar, say May 1 or 2.
+Transplanting is very usual at the end of May or early in June. In
+Kagawa, Shikoku, I found that rice was sown at the beginning of May or
+even at the end of April, the transplanting being done in mid-June.
+The harvest was obtained 10 per cent. about September 10th, 30 per
+cent. in October and 60 per cent. about the beginning of November. The
+winter crop of naked barley was sown in the first quarter of December
+and was harvested late in May or early in June, so there was just time
+for the rice planting in mid-June.
+
+In Kochi the first crop is sown about March 15, the seedlings are put
+out in mid-May and the harvest is ready about August 10. The second
+crop, which has been sown in June, is ready with its seedlings from
+August 13 to August 15, and the harvest arrives about November 1 and
+2. The first crop may yield about 3 _koku_, the second 1-1/2 _koku_.
+
+A good deal depends in raising a big crop on a good seed bed. This is
+got by reducing the quantity of seed used and by applying manure
+wisely. Whereas formerly as much as from 5 to 7 _go_ of seed was sown
+per _tsubo_, the biggest crops are now got from 1 _go_.
+
+The Japanese names of the most widely grown varieties are Shinriki,
+Aikoku, Omachi, Chikusei and Sekitori. At an experiment station I
+copied the names of the varieties on exhibition there: Banzai,
+Patriotism, Japanese Embroidery, Good-looking, Early Power of God,
+Bamboo, Small Embroidery, Power of God, Mutual Virtue, Yellow Bamboo,
+Late White, Power of God (glutinous), Silver Rice Cake and Eternal
+Rice Field.
+
+There are several thousand _chō_ in the vicinity of Tokyo where, owing
+to the low temperature of the marshy soil, the seed is sown direct in
+the paddies, not broadcast but at regular intervals and in thrice or
+four times the normal quantities.
+
+
+RATE OF PLANTING [XXII]. I have been told that an adult who has the
+seedlings brought to his or her hand can stick in a thousand an hour.
+The early varieties may be set in clumps of seven or eight plants;
+middle-growth sorts may contain from five to six; the latest kind may
+include only three or four. The number of clumps planted may be 42 per
+_tsubo_, which, as a _tsubo_ is nearly four square yards, is about ten
+per square yard. The clumps are put in their places by being pushed
+into the mud. A straight line is kept by means of a rope. The success
+of the crop depends in no small degree on skilful planting.
+
+
+HOW MUCH RICE DOES A JAPANESE EAT? [XXIII]. The daily consumption of
+rice per head, counting young and old, is nearly 3 _go_. (A _go_ is
+roughly a third of a pint.) A sturdy labourer will consume at least 5
+_go_ in a day, and sometimes 7 or even 10 _go_. The allowance for
+soldiers is 6 _go_. These quantities represent the rice uncooked. In
+recent years more and more rice has been eaten by those who formerly
+ate barley or mainly barley. And some who once ate a good deal of
+millet and _hiye_ are now eating a certain amount of rice. The
+average annual consumption per head of the Japanese population (Korea
+and Formosa excluded from the calculation) was: 1888-93, 948 _go_;
+1908-13, 1,037 _go_; 1913-18, 1,050 _go_. The averages of 25 years
+(1888-1912) were: production, 42,756,584 _koku_; consumption,
+44,410,725 _koku_; deficit, 1,984,970 _koku_; population, 45,140,094;
+per head, 0.980 _koku_. In 1921 the Department of Agriculture,
+estimating a population of 55,960,000 (see Appendix XXX) and an annual
+consumption per head of 1.1 _koku_ per year, put the national
+consumption for a year at about 61,550,000 _koku_. See also Appendix
+XXVI.
+
+
+IMPORTED AND EXPORTED RICE [XXIV]. "Good rice" is imported from Korea
+and Formosa. The objection is to "Rangoon" rice. But most of the
+imported rice does not come from Rangoon but from Saigon. The figures
+for 1919 were in yen: China, 283,011; British India, 1,012,979;
+Kwantung, 15,053,977; Siam, 29,367,430; French Indo-China,
+116,313,525; other countries, 39,918; total, 162,070,840. The exports
+in 1919 were in yen: China, 1,354; Australia, 6,570; Asiatic Russia,
+165,463; Kwantung, 213,633; British America, 356,600; United States,
+476,756; Hawaii, 3,046,598; other countries, 60,707--all obviously in
+the main for Japanese consumption. The total imports and exports were
+in _koku_ and yen over a period of years:
+
+--------------------------------------------------------
+       |       Imports         |       Exports         |
+  Year |-----------------------|-----------|-----------|
+       |  _Koku_   |Value (yen)|  _Koku_   |Value (yen)|
+--------------------------------------------------------
+  1909 | 1,325,243 | 13,585,817|  422,513  | 5,867,290 |
+  1910 |   918,627 |  8,644,439|  429,251  | 5,900,477 |
+  1911 | 1,719,566 | 11,721,085|  216,198  | 3,940,541 |
+  1912 | 2,234,437 | 30,193,481|  208,423  | 4,367,824 |
+  1913 | 3,637,269 | 48,472,304|  204,002  | 4,372,979 |
+  1914 | 2,022,644 | 24,823,933|  260,738  | 4,974,108 |
+  1915 |   457,606 |  4,886,125|  662,629  | 9,676,969 |
+  1916 |   309,158 |  3,087,616|  686,479  |11,197,356 |
+  1917 |   564,376 |  6,513,373|  769,129  |14,662,546 |
+  1918 | 4,647,168 | 89,755,678|  264,565  | 8,321,965 |
+  1919 | 4,642,382 |162,070,840|   95,219  | 4,327,690 |
+  1920 |   471,083 | 18,059,194|  116,249  | 5,897,675 |
+--------------------------------------------------------
+
+The twenty-five years' average (1888-1912) of excess of import
+over export was 1,339,493 _koku_. See also Appendix XXVIII.
+
+
+INCREASE OF RICE YIELD AND OF POPULATION [XXV].
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+           |           |           |Percentage |           | Percentage
+           |    1882   |   1913    |   of      |   1918    |    of
+           |           |           |Increase   |           |Increase[*]
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+Population |36,700,000 |53,362,000 |   45      |66,851,000 |    55
+Rice crop  |30,692,000 |50,222,000 |   63      |53,893,000 |    75
+  (_koku_) |           |           |           |           |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+* 1882-1918. The degree to which the increase in production will
+be maintained is of course a matter for discussion. As far as rice is
+concerned, it must be borne in mind that there is an increasing
+consumption per head.
+
+
+FARMERS' DIET [XXVI]. It is officially stated in 1921 that "the common
+farm diet consists of a mixture of cooked rice and barley as the
+principal food with vegetables and occasionally fish." The barley is
+what is known as naked barley. Ordinary barley is eaten in northern
+Japan, but two-thirds of the barley eaten elsewhere is the wheat-like
+naked barley, which cannot be grown in Fukushima and the north. The
+husking of ordinary barley is hard work. The young men do it during
+the night when it is cool. They keep on until cock-crow. Their songs
+and the sound of their mallets make a memorable impression as one
+passes through a village on a moonlight night. Another substitute for
+rice beyond millet is _hiye_ (panic grass). In the south it is
+regarded as a weed of the paddies, but in the north many _tan_ are
+planted with this heavy-yielding small grain.
+
+
+TAXATION [XXVII]. Before 1906 national taxation was 2.5 per cent. of
+the legal price of land. In 1900 it was 3.3 per cent., in 1904 5.5 per
+cent., in 1911 4.7 per cent, and in 1915 4.5 per cent. But local
+taxation increased in greater proportion.
+
+
+FLAVOUR OF RICE AND PRICE FLUCTUATIONS [XXVIII]. Japanese rice has a
+fatty flavour which the people of Japan like. Therefore the native
+rice commands a higher price in Japan than Chinese or Indian rice.
+With the exception of a small quantity exported to Japanese abroad,
+Japanese rice is consumed in Japan. The supply of it and the demand
+for it are exclusively a Japanese affair. Naturally, when the crop
+fails the price soars, and when there is a superabundant harvest the
+price comes down to the level of foreign rice. Here is the secret of
+the enormous fluctuations in the price of Japanese rice with which
+the authorities have so often endeavoured to cope.
+
+The Government granary plan is the third big effort of authority to
+manage rice prices. The Okuma Government, under the administration of
+which rice went down to 14 yen per _koku_, had a Commission to raise
+prices. The Terauchi Ministry, at a time when prices rose, touching 55
+yen, had a Commission to bring prices down.
+
+
+AREA AND CLIMATE [XXIX]. Japan Proper comprises a main island, three
+other large islands in sight of the main island, and
+archipelagos--4,000 islets have been counted. The main island, Honshu,
+with Shikoku behind it, lies off the coast of Korea; the next largest
+and northernmost island, Hokkaido, off the coast of Siberia, and the
+remaining sizeable island and the southernmost, Kyushu, off the coast
+of China over against the mouth of the Yangtse. The area of this
+territory, that is of Japan before the acquirement of Formosa, Korea,
+southern Saghalien and part of Manchuria, is about 142,000 square
+miles in area, which is that of Great Britain in possession not of one
+Wales but of four, or nearly 1 per cent. of the area of Asia. But
+there are several million more people in Japan than there are
+inhabitants of Great Britain and thrice as many as there are Britons
+in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India. (See also
+Appendix XXX.) Japan, which lies between the latitudes of Cairo and
+the Crimea, may be said to consist of mountains, of which fifty are
+active volcanoes, with some land, either hilly or boggy, at the foot
+of them. It is nowhere more than 200 miles across and in one place is
+only 50. A note on the ocean currents which exercise an influence on
+agriculture will be found on page 195. The protection afforded to the
+eastern prefectures by mountain ranges is obvious. Generally the
+summer temperature of Japan is higher and the winter temperature is
+lower than is recorded in Europe and America within the same
+latitudes.
+
+"The mild climate and abundant rainfall," says the Department of
+Agriculture, "stimulate a luxuriant forest development throughout the
+country which in turn provides ample fountain heads for rivers. The
+rivers and streams run in all directions, affording opportunity for
+irrigation all over the country. The insular position of the country
+renders its humidity high and its rainfall abundant when compared with
+Continental countries. The rainy season prevails during the months of
+June and July, making this season risky for the harvest of wheat and
+barley; on the other hand it affords a beneficent irrigation supply to
+paddy-grown rice, which is the most important crop. The characteristic
+feature of the climate in the greater part of the islands is the
+frequency of storms in the months of August and September. As the
+flowers of the rice plant commence to bloom during the same period,
+these late summer storms cause much damage."
+
+The weather in Tokyo in 1918 was as follows:
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+            |Jan.|Feb.|Mar.|Apl.| May|June|July|Aug.|Sept.|Oct.|Nov.|Dec.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Rain and    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |     |    |    |
+  snow (mm.)|  10|  65| 163| 108| 123| 149|  82|  78|  202| 135| 142| 80
+Temp. (C.)  | 1.6| 3.6| 6.7|11.7|16.7|20.2|26.0|26.0| 22.6|16.0|10.4|3.9
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The varied climate of Japan is indicated by the following statistics
+for centres as far distant as Nagasaki in the extreme south-west and
+Sapporo in Hokkaido:
+
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+                |Nagasaki| Kyoto |Tokyo | Niigata | Aomori | Sapporo
+----------------|--------|-------|------|---------|--------|---------
+ Days of rain or|        |       |      |         |        |
+  snow          |   179  |   176 |  144 |    218  |  229   |    216
+ Average        |        |       |      |         |        |
+  temp. (C.)    |  14.9  |  13.6 | 13.8 |   12.5  |  9.4   |    7.3
+ Maximum        |  36.7  |  37.2 | 36.6 |   39.1  | 36.0   |   33.4
+ Minimum        |  _5.6_ | _11.9_| _8.1_|   _9.7_ | _19.0_ |  _25.6_
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The italicised temperatures are below zero. Average dates of last
+frost: Tokyo, April 6; Nagoya, April 13; Matsumoto, May 17.
+
+
+POPULATION OF JAPAN, MANCHURIA AND MONGOLIA [XXX]. The population of
+the Empire according to the 1920 census was 77,005,510, which included
+Korea, 17,284,207; Formosa, 3,654,398; Saghalien, 105,765; and South
+Manchuria (that is, the Kwantung Peninsula), 80,000. In Old Japan
+(Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu with the near islands, and Loo-choos and
+Bonins) there were 53,602,043, and in Hokkaido (including Kuriles)
+2,359,097.
+
+Tokyo is the largest city, 2,173,000, followed by Osaka, 1,252,000.
+Kobe and Kyoto have a little more than half a million; Nagoya and
+Yokohama four hundred thousand apiece. Ten other cities have a hundred
+thousand odd.
+
+In the following table the populations and areas of Japan, Great
+Britain and the United States are compared:
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+      Country                   |  Area   | Population    |  Population
+                                |         |               | per sq. mile
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Japan (excluding Korea, Formosa |         |               |
+  and Saghalien)                | 142,000 | 55,961,140    |     394
+                                |         |   (1920)      |
+British Isles                   | 121,636 | 47,306,664[*] |     388
+                                |         |   (1921)      |
+United States (excluding Alaska |         |               |
+  and oversea possessions)      |3,000,000| 105,683,108   |      35
+                                |         |   (1920)      |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+* Ireland taken at 1911 census figures.
+
+Japan's 394 per square mile is lowered by the population of Hokkaido
+(2,359,097), which is only 66 per square mile. The population of the
+three chief Japanese islands is: Honshu, the mainland (41,806,930),
+471; Shikoku (3,066,890), 423; and Kyushu (8,729,088), 511. (These
+figures are for 1920.) "As regards density per square kilometre,"
+writes an official of the Imperial Bureau of Statistics in the _Japan
+Year-book_, with the figures antecedent to the 1920 census before him,
+"it is calculated at 140 for Japan and this compares as follows with
+Belgium (1910) 252, England and Wales (1911) 239, Holland (1909) 171,
+Italy (1911) 121, Germany (1910) 120 and France 44. When comparison is
+made on the basis of habitable area Japan may be considered to surpass
+all as to density, for while in Japan it constitutes only 19 per cent,
+of the total area, the ratio is as high as 74 for Belgium, 73 for
+England and Wales, 67 for Holland, 76 for Italy, 65 for Germany and 70
+for France." The Professor of Agricultural Science at Tokyo University
+says: "The area under cultivation, even in the densely populated
+parts, is comparatively smaller than in any other country."
+
+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 |  --            |  --
+---------------------------------------------------------
+
+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.
+
+A considerable part of Japan is uninhabitable. Of how much of the
+British Isles can this be said? The fact that there are in Japan fifty
+more or less active volcanoes, about a thousand hot springs and two
+dozen mountains between 12,000 and 8,000 ft. high speaks for itself.
+Ben Nevis is only 4,400, Snowdon only 3,500 ft.
+
+The population of Korea in 1920 (17,284,207) was 239 per square mile.
+According to _Whitaker_ for 1921 the population of Manchuria (11
+millions) is 30 per square mile, and of Mongolia (3 millions) 2.8.
+
+
+SMALL FARMS DECREASING [XXXI].
+
+------------------------------------------------------
+Year |Below 5 |Over 5 |Over 5 |Over 2 |Over 3 |Over 5
+     |_tan_   |_tan_  |_chō_  |_chō_  |_chō_  |_chō_
+------------------------------------------------------
+1908 |37.28   |32.61  |19.51  |6.44   |3.01   |1.15
+1912 |37.14   |33.25  |19.61  |5.96   |2.83   |1.21
+1918 |35.54   |33.30  |20.70  |6.33   |2.82   |1.31
+1919 |35.36   |33.18  |20.68  |6.21   |2.83   |1.74
+----------------------------------------------------
+
+See also Appendix XLVII.
+
+
+FORESTS [XXXII]. The following figures for 1918 show, in thousand
+_chō_, the ownership of forests (bared tracts in brackets): Crown,
+1,303 (89); State, 7,288 (392); prefectures, cities, towns and
+villages, 2,894 (1,383); temples and shrines, 111 (15); 7,186 (1,630);
+total, 18,782 (3,509). The largest yield is from sugi (cryptomeria),
+pine and _hinoki_ (_Charmae-cyparis obtusa_).
+
+
+ARMAMENTS [XXXIII]. 1,505 million yen of the national debt is for
+armaments and military purposes against 923 million yen for
+reproductive undertakings (railways, harbours, drainage, roads,
+steelworks, mining, telephones, etc.), 143 million for exploitation of
+Formosa, Korea and Saghalien, 123 million for financial adjustment
+and 98 million for feudal pensions and feudal debt. Of the expenditure
+for 1920-1, 846 million, some 395 million were for the army and navy.
+During a period of 130 years the United States Government has spent
+nearly four-fifths of its revenue on war or objects related to war.
+
+
+LANDOWNING AND FARMING [XXXIV]. Before the Restoration the farmers
+were the tenants of the daimyos' vassals, the samurai, or of the
+daimyos direct. When the daimyos gave up their lands the Crown made
+the farmers the owners of the land they occupied. Its legal value was
+assessed and the national land tax was fixed at 3 per cent, and the
+local tax at 1 per cent. Various adjustments have since taken place.
+
+The Japanese Constitutional Labour Party has insisted in a
+communication to the International Labour Conference at Geneva that
+Japanese tenant farmers are not properly called farmers but that they
+are "labourers pure and simple." See Appendix LXXVI.
+
+
+STATE RAILWAYS [XXXV]. The railways, which were nationalised in 1907,
+extended in 1919 to 6,000 miles. There were also nearly 2,000 miles of
+light railways (in addition to 1,368 of electric street cars). Most of
+the lines are single track. The gauge is 3 ft. 6 in. The Government
+has proposed gradually to electrify the whole system.
+
+
+ILLEGITIMACY [XXXVI]. In Japan illegitimacy is a question not of
+morals but of law. That is to say, it is a question of registration.
+If a husband omits to register his marriage he is not legally married.
+Thus it is possible for there to be born to a married pair a child
+which is technically illegitimate. If the child should die at an early
+age it is equally possible for it to appear on the official records as
+illegitimate. A birth must be registered within a fortnight. It may be
+thought perhaps that it is practicable for the father to register his
+marriage after the birth of the child and within the time allowed for
+registration. It is possible but it is not always easy. An application
+for the registration of the marriage of a man under twenty-five must
+bear the signature of his parents and the signature of two persons who
+testify that the required consent has been regularly obtained. In the
+event of a man's father having "retired," the signature of the head of
+the family must be secured. If a man is over twenty-five, then the
+signatures of his parents or of any two relatives will suffice. Now
+suppose that a man is living at a distance from his birthplace or
+suppose that the head of his family is travelling. Plainly, there may
+be a difficulty in securing a certificate in time. Therefore, because,
+as has been explained, no moral obloquy attaches to unregistered
+marriage or to unregistered or legally illegitimate children,
+registration is often put off. When a man removes from one place to
+another and thereupon registers, it may be that his marriage and his
+children may be illegitimate in one place and legitimate in another.
+There is a difference between actual and legal domicile. A man may
+have his domicile in Tokyo but his citizen rights in his native
+village.
+
+
+SAKÉ AND BEER [XXXVII]. Saké is sold in 1 or 2 _go_ bottles at from 10
+to 25 sen for 2 _go_. As it is cheaper to buy the liquor unbottled
+most people have it brought home in the original brewery tub. There
+are five sorts of _saké_: _seishu_ (refined), _dakushu_ (unrefined or
+muddy), _shirozake_ (white _saké_), _mirin_ (sweet _saké_) and
+_shōchū_ (distilled _saké_). _Saké_ may contain from 10 to 14 per
+cent. of alcohol; _shōchū_ is stronger; _mirin_ has been described as
+a liqueur. Japanese beers contain from 1 to 2 per cent. less alcohol
+than English beers and only about a quarter of the alcohol in _saké_.
+More than four-fifths of it is sold in bottles. Beer is replacing
+_saké_ to some extent, but owing to the increase in the population of
+Japan the total consumption of _saké_ (about 4,000,000 _koku_) remains
+practically the same. In 1919 beer and _saké_ were exported to the
+value of 7,200,000 and 4,500,000 yen respectively.
+
+
+MINERAL PRODUCTION [XXXVIII]. In 1919 the production was as follows:
+gold, 1,938,711 _momme_, value 9,681,494 yen; silver, 42,822,160
+_momme_, value 11,131,861 yen; copper, 130,737,861 _kin_, value
+67,581,475 yen; iron, steel and iron pyrites, 169,545,050 _kwan_, the
+value of the steel being 72,666,867 yen; coal, 31,271,093 metric tons,
+value 442,540,941 yen.
+
+
+JAPAN AS SILK PRODUCER [XXXIX], In exportation of silk, Japan, which
+in 1919 had under sericulture 8.6 of her total cultivated area and
+17.1 per cent, of her upland, passed Italy in 1901 and China in 1910.
+Her exportation is now twice that of China. In production her total is
+thrice that of Italy. France is a long way behind Italy. The
+production of China is an unknown quantity.
+
+As to the advantages and drawbacks of Japan for sericulture the
+Department of Agriculture wrote in 1921: "Japan is not favourably
+placed, inasmuch as atmospheric changes are often very violent, and
+the air becomes damp in the silk-culture seasons. This is especially
+the case in the season of spring silkworms, for the cold is severe at
+the beginning and the air becomes excessively damp as the rainy season
+sets in. The intense heat in July and August, too, is very trying for
+the summer and autumn breeds. Compared with France and Italy, Japan
+seems to be heavily handicapped, but the abundance of mulberry leaves
+all over the land and the comparatively rich margin of spare labour
+among the farmers have proved great advantages."
+
+The length of the sericultural season ranges from 54 days in spring to
+31 or 32 days in autumn, but there are variations according to
+weather, methods and seed. The season begins with the incubation
+period. Then follows the rearing. Last is the period in which the
+caterpillars mount the little straw stacks provided for them in order
+that they may wind themselves into cocoons. I do not enter into the
+technics of the retardation and stimulation of seed in order to delay
+or to hasten the hatch according to the movements of the market.
+Hydrochloric and sulphuric-acid baths and electricity are used as
+stimulants; storage in "wind holes" is practised to defer hatching.
+
+Cocoons are reckoned both by the _kwan_ of 8-1/4 lbs. and by the
+_koku_ of approximately 5 bushels. The cocoon production in 1918
+worked out at about 16-1/2 bushels per acre of mulberry or 18 bushels
+per family engaged in sericulture. About 34 million bushels of cocoons
+are produced. In 1919 the production was 270,800,000 kilos. The
+average production of a _tambu_ of mulberry field was 1.356 _koku_. In
+1919 a _koku_ was worth on the average 106.81 yen (including double
+and waste cocoons). The cost of producing cocoons rose from 4.105 yen
+per _kwamme_ in 1916 to 11.284 yen in 1920. The daily wages of
+labourers employed by the farmers rose from 62 sen for men and 47 sen
+for women in 1910 to 1 yen 93 sen for men and 1 yen 44 sen for women
+in 1920. With the slump, the price of cocoons fell below the cost of
+production and there was trouble in several districts when wages were
+due. The labourers engaged for the silk seasons of 1916 numbered
+341,577, of whom 30,000 came from other than their employers'
+prefectures. These people migrate from the early to the late districts
+and so manage to provide themselves with work during a considerable
+period. As many as 5-1/2 per cent, of the persons engaged in the
+industry are labourers. Many employment agencies are engaged in
+supplying labour.
+
+It has been estimated that the labour of 19.8 persons (200 per
+hectare) is needed for a _tambu_ of mulberry field. The silkworms
+hatched from a card of eggs (laid by 100 moths) are supposed to call
+for the labour of 49.2 persons (1,456 per kilo, 2.204 lbs.)
+
+The production of _cocoons_ rose from 0.866 _koku_ per card in 1914 to
+1.105 in 1918, or from 4,412,000 to 6,832,000.
+
+More than three-quarters of the raw silk produced used to be exported.
+Now, with the increase of factories in Japan (the figures are for
+1918), only 67 per cent, goes abroad, the bulk of it to the United
+States, which obtained from Japan, in 1917-18, 75 per cent., and in
+1919, it has been stated, 90 per cent, of its total supply. About 28
+per cent, of the world's consumption is supplied by Japan. Whereas in
+1915 the output of raw silk was 5,460,000 _kwan_ valued at 217,746,000
+yen, it was in 1918 7,891,000 _kwan_ valued at 546,543,000 yen. While
+in 1915-16 the percentage of Japanese exporters to foreign exporters
+was 64-4, it had risen in 1919-20 to 77.5. Against 450 _chō_ of
+mulberries in 1914 there were in 1918 508,993 _chō_. The total export
+of raw silk and silk textiles to all countries in 1920 was 382 and 158
+million yen respectively. In 1919, 96 per cent. of the raw silk Japan
+exported went to the United States and 46 out of 101 million yens'
+worth of exported silk textiles (habutal). Japan's whole trade with
+the United States is worth 880 million yen a year. But the proportion
+of basins in the factories steadily increases. There are nearly five
+thousand factories, big and little. A well-informed correspondent
+writes to me: "You know of course of the big organisation subsidised
+by the Government to control prices and not to make too much silk. The
+truth is the silk interest became too powerful and the Government is
+not a free agent."
+
+
+TUBERCULOSIS [XL]. Phthisis and tuberculosis sweep off 22 per cent,
+and bronchitis and inflammation of the lungs 18 per cent., or together
+more than a third of the population. See also Appendix LXIX.
+
+
+WOMEN WORKERS [XLI]. In addition to women and girls working in
+agriculture, in the mines, in the factories and & trades there are
+said to be 1,200,000 in business and the public services. Teachers
+number about 52,000, nurses 33,000, midwives 28,000 and doctors 700.
+
+
+FACTORY FOOD AND "DEFIANCE OF HYGIENIC RULES" [XLII]. Dr. Kuwata says
+in the _Japan Year-book_ (1920-1) that "in cotton mills where
+machinery is run day and night it is not uncommon when business is
+brisk to put operatives to 18 hours' work. In such cases holidays are
+given only fortnightly or are entirely withheld. The silk factories in
+Naganoken generally put their operatives to 14 or 16 hours' work and
+in only a small portion are the hours 13."
+
+Summarising a report of the Department of Agriculture and Commerce, he
+says of the factory workers: "The bulk of workers are female and are
+chiefly fed with boiled rice in 43 per cent. of the factories. In
+other factories the staple food is poor, the rice being mixed with
+cheaper barley, millet or sweet potato in the proportion of from 20 to
+50 per cent. In most cases subsidiary dishes consist of vegetables,
+meat or beans being supplied on an average only eight times a month.
+Dormitories are in defiance of hygienic rules. In most cases only half
+to 1 _tsubo_ (4 square yards) are allotted to one person." See also
+Appendix LXIX.
+
+
+CHINESE COMPETITION WITH JAPAN [XLIII]. The _Jiji_ called attention in
+the spring of 1921 to the way in which spinning mills in China were an
+increasing menace to Japanese industry. There were in China 810,000
+spindles under Chinese management, 250,000 under European and 340,000
+under Japanese, a total of 1,430,000, which will shortly be increased
+to 1,150,000 against 3,000,000 in Japan only 1,800,000 of which are at
+work. The 1919 return was: China, 1,530,000; Japan, 3,200,000.
+
+
+HOODWINKING THE FOREIGNER [XLIV] In the _Manchester Guardian_ Japan
+Number, June 9, 1921, the managing director of a leading spinning
+company, in a page and a half article, states that among the reasons
+why a large capitalisation is needed by Japanese factories, beyond the
+fact of higher cost of machinery, is the "special protection needed
+for Japanese operatives and the special consideration given by the
+spinners to the happiness and welfare of their operatives." When will
+Japanese believe their best friends when they tell them that such
+attempts to hoodwink the foreigner achieve no result but to cover
+themselves with ridicule?
+
+
+TOBACCO [XLV]. In 1918-19 there was produced on 24,439 _chō_
+10,308,089 _kwan_ of tobacco. During the same period 9,681,274 _kwan_
+were taken by the Government, which paid 19,114,803 yen or 1.974 per
+_kwan_. In 1919 there was imported leaf tobacco to the value of
+5,288,918 yen. Cigarettes to the value of 589,744 yen were exported.
+The profits of the Tobacco Monopoly, estimated at 71 millions for
+1919-20, were estimated at 88 millions for 1920-1.
+
+
+ELECTORAL OFFENCES [XLVI]. There were candidates at the 1920 election
+who spent 50,000 yen. It is not uncommon for the number of persons
+charged with election offences to reach four figures. The
+qualification for a vote (law of 1918) is the payment of 3 yen of
+national tax. Under the old law there were about 25 voters per 1,000
+inhabitants; now there are 54.
+
+
+SMALLNESS OF ESTATES [XLVII]. The number of men holding from 5 to 10
+_chō_ was, in 1919, 121,141 and between 10 and 50 _chō_, 45,978. The
+number holding 50 _chō_ (125 acres) and upwards was only 4,226, and
+400 or so of these were in Hokkaido. See also Appendix XXXI.
+
+
+VEGETABLE WAX MAKING [XLVIII]. The wax-tree berries are flailed and
+then pounded. Next comes boiling. The mush obtained is put into a bag
+and that bag into a wooden press. The result is wax in its first
+state. A reboiling follows and then--the discovery of the method was
+made by a wax manufacturer while washing his hands--a slow dropping of
+the wax into water. What is taken out of the water is wax in a flaked
+state. It is dried, melted and poured into moulds. The best berries
+yield 13 per cent. of fine wax. The variety of wax grown was _oro_
+(yellow wax). There is another variety. The sort I saw is grafted at
+three years with its own variety. The fruitful period lasts for a
+quarter of a century. Roughly, the yield is 100 _kwan_ per _tan_.
+Formerly, wax was made from wild trees.
+
+
+NAMES FOR ETA [XLIX]. Eta (great defilement) is an offensive name. The
+phrase _tokushu buraku_ (special villages), applied to Eta hamlets, is
+also objected to. _Heimin_ is the official name, but the Eta are
+generally termed _shin heimin_ (new common people), which is again
+regarded as invidiously distinguishing them. The name _chihō_ is now
+officially proposed for Eta villages. The fact that many Eta have
+made large sums during the war has somewhat improved the position of
+their class. Some Eta are well satisfied with their name and freely
+acknowledge their origin. Year by year intermarriage increases in
+Japan. A Home Department official has been quoted as saying that in
+1918 as many as 450 marriages were registered between Eta and ordinary
+Japanese.
+
+The population of the village I visited, 1,900 in 300 families, was
+getting its living as follows: farming 682, trade 185, industry 31,
+day labour 97, travelling players 180, not reported 180. The
+Parliamentary voters were 10, prefectural 17, county 19 and village
+57. There were 98 ex-soldiers in the community and one man was a
+member of the local education committee. The birth rate was above the
+local average. The crimes committed during the year were: theft 2,
+gambling 2, assault 1, police offences 3. Of the 300 families only one
+was destitute, and it had been taken care of by the young women's
+society.
+
+A considerable proportion of the early emigrants to America were Eta.
+It is now recognised that it was a short-sighted policy on the part of
+the authorities to allow them to go.
+
+
+PAPER MAKING [L]. A paper-making outfit may cost from 60 to 70 yen
+only. The shrubs grown to produce bark for paper making are _kōzo_
+(the paper mulberry), _mitsumata_ (_Edgworthia chrysantha_) and
+_gampi_ (_Wilkstroemia sikokiana_). Someone has also hit on the idea
+of turning the bark of the ordinary mulberry to use in paper making.
+
+
+LIBRARIES, THE PRESS AND THE CENSORSHIP [LI]. There are 1,200
+libraries in the country with 4 million books and 8 million visitors
+in the year. About 47,000 books are published in a year, of which less
+than half, probably, are original works. From one to two hundred are
+translations, usually condensed translations. The largest number deal
+with politics. There are about 3,000 newspapers and periodicals. In
+1917 some 1,200 issues of newspapers and periodicals attracted the
+attention of the censor and the sale of 600 books was prohibited. Some
+sixty foreign books were stopped.
+
+
+JAPANESE IN BRAZIL [LII]. Emigration to South America has latterly
+been arrested through the rise in wages at home. During the past four
+years an average of about 3,000 families has gone every twelve months
+to Brazil, where about a quarter of a million acres are owned and
+leased by Japanese. The Japanese Government spends 100,000 yen a year
+on giving a grant of 50 yen to each emigrating family up to 2,000 in
+number, through the Overseas Colonisation Company. The Brazilian
+Government also offers a gratuity.
+
+
+CATTLE KEEPING IN SOUTH-WESTERN JAPAN [LIII]. Tajima, the old province
+which comprises about four counties in Tottori, is a large supplier of
+"Kobe beef," but it is a cattle-feeding not a grazing district. The
+number of cattle in Hyogo is double the cattle population of Tottori,
+but no cattle keeper has more than a score of beasts. The usual thing
+is for farmers to have two or three apiece. Some of the "Kobe beef"
+comes from the prefectures of Hiroshima and Okayama. It is in the
+north of Japan, where the people are not so thick on the ground and
+cultivation is less intense, that cattle production has its best
+chance.
+
+
+VALUE OF LAND [LIV]. The value of land in the hill-village in which I
+stayed necessarily varied, but the average price of paddy was given me
+as 250 yen per _tan_. Dry land was half that. Open hill land, that is
+the so-called grass land, might be worth 120 yen. The rise in values
+which has taken place is illustrated by the following table of
+farm-land values per _tan_ in 1919, published by the Bank of Japan:
+
+------------------------------------------------------------
+                 |       Paddy          |      Upland
+------------------------------------------------------------
+                 |Good  |Ordinary|Bad   |Good |Ordinary|Bad
+------------------------------------------------------------
+Hokkaido         |231   |158     |95    |115  |62      |26
+       {North }  |802   |579     |366   |477  |295     |170
+Honshu {Tokyo }  |863   |607     |406   |673  |442     |272
+(main  {middle}  |1,226 |834     |523   |875  |565     |313
+island){west  }  |1,226 |840     |525   |727  |443     |244
+Shikoku          |1,120 |784     |470   |752  |450     |225
+Kyushu           |960   |652     |416   |538  |300     |175
+-----------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+FRUIT PRODUCTION [LV]. The Japanese when they do not eat meat do not
+feel the need of fruit which is experienced in the West. But there is
+now a steady increase in the fruit crops. For 1918 the figures were
+(in thousands of _kwan_): persimmons, 43,620; pears, 27,730; oranges,
+73,660; peaches, 12,810; apples, 6,695; grapes, 6,240; plums (largely
+used pickled), 6,190.
+
+
+JAPANESE STUDENTS ABROAD [LVI]. During 1921 more than 200 young
+professors or candidates for professorships were sent to Europe and
+America by the Ministry of Education. Probably another 300 were
+studying on funds (£450 for a year plus fares is the grant which is
+made by the Ministry of Education) supplied by the Ministries of
+Agriculture, of Railways and of the Army and Navy (often supplemented,
+no doubt, by money furnished by their families). If to these students
+are added those sent by independent Universities, institutions,
+corporations and private firms, the total cannot be fewer than 1,000.
+The students stay from six months to two or three years, and when they
+return others take their places. Counting diplomatists, business men,
+tourists and students there are, of course, more Japanese in Great
+Britain than there are British in Japan. There are fifteen hundred
+Japanese in London alone.
+
+
+TEA PRODUCTION [LVII]. Every prefecture but Aomori produces some tea,
+but very little is grown in the prefectures of the extreme north. The
+largest producers are in order: Shidzuoka, Miye, Nara, Kyoto,
+Kumamoto, Gifu, Kagoshima, Shiga, Saitama, Osaka and Ibariki. In 1919
+Shidzuoka produced 4 million _kwan_, valued at nearly 13 million yen.
+But the statistics of tea production are unsatisfactory. Much tea is
+produced and sold locally which is unreported. A great deal of this is
+of inferior quality and produced from half-wild bushes. The 1919
+figures are: area, 48,843 _chō_; number of factories, 1,122,164; green
+tea--_sencha_, 7,205,886 _kwan_; _bancha_, 2,580,035 _kwan; gyokuro_,
+75,826 _kwan_; black, 50,756 _kwan_; others, 234,868 _kwan_; _sencha_
+dust, 249,862 _kwan_; other dust, 486 _kwan_. Total, 10,397,719
+_kwan_; value, 33,377,460 yen. There was exported green tea (pan
+fired), 12,420,000 yen; green tea (basket fired), 4,575,000 yen;
+others, 1,405,000 yen. Of this there went to the United States
+consignments to the value of 15,600,000 yen and to Canada of 1,700,000
+yen. In 1918 the export to America was 50,000 tons; in 1919, 30,000;
+and in 1920, 23,000; and a further decline is expected in 1921. The
+total exports, which were, in 1909, 62 per cent, of the production,
+were, in 1918, only 57 per cent, and, in 1919, 37 per cent.
+
+
+THEINE PERCENTAGES.--The following percentages of theine in black and
+green tea were furnished me by the Department of Agriculture:
+
+---------------------------------------------------
+       |Green          |Green       |Black |Oolong
+       |(Basket Fired) |(Pan Fired) |      |
+---------------------------------------------------
+Theine |2.81           |2.22        |2.26  |2.35
+Tannin |15.08          |14.29       |7.32  |16.15
+---------------------------------------------------
+
+Theine or caffeine is a feathery-looking substance which resembles
+the material of a silk-worm's cocoon. There is more theine or caffeine
+in tea leaves than in coffee.
+
+
+MISTAKES IN CROP STATISTICS [LVIII]. Generally speaking, it may be
+said that cereals are under-estimated and cocoons over-estimated.
+Cereals may be 20 per cent. under-estimated. The under-estimation may
+no doubt be traced back to the time when taxation was on the basis of
+the grain yield.
+
+
+OCCUPATIONS FOR THE BLIND [LIX]. A third of the 70,000 sightless are
+_amma_, about a quarter as many practise acupuncture and the
+application of the moxa, while nearly the same number are musicians or
+storytellers. The blind have petitioned the Diet to restrict the
+calling of _amma_ to men and women who have lost their sight.
+
+
+WELL SINKING FOR GAS [LX]. The presence of gas, which is odourless, is
+betrayed by the discoloration of the water from which it emanates and
+by bubbles.
+
+
+HEALTH, HEIGHTS AND WEIGHTS OF SCHOOL CHILDREN [LXI]. In 1917-18 the
+constitutions of 1,193,000 elementary school boys were reported as 53
+per cent. robust, 48 per cent. medium and 4 per cent. weak. The
+constitutions of 1,016,000 elementary school girls were reported 49
+per cent. robust, 48 per cent. medium and 3 per cent. weak. Just as
+women are often underfed in Japan, girls may frequently be less well
+fed than boys. Elementary school boys of 16 averaged 4.84 _shaku_ in
+height and 10.85 _kwan_ in weight. The average height and weight of
+512 elementary school girls of the same age were 4.71 _shaku_ and
+10.83 _kwan_.
+
+
+HEIGHT AND WEIGHT OF WRESTLERS [LXII]. In a list of ten famous
+wrestlers the tallest is stated to be 6.30 _shaku_ (a _shaku_ is 11.93
+inches) and the heaviest as 33.2 _kwan_ (a _kwan_ is 8.267 lbs.). The
+average height and weight of these men work out at 5.84 _shaku_ and
+28.4 _kwan_. By way of comparison it may be mentioned that the
+percentage of conscripts in 1918 over 5.5 _shaku_ was 2.58 per cent.
+The average weight of Japanese is recorded as 13 _kwan_ 830 _momme_.
+
+
+EXEMPTION FROM AND AVOIDANCE OF CONSCRIPTION [LXIII]. The age is 20
+and the service two years (with four years in reserve and ten years
+depot service). The only son of a parent over 60 unable to support
+himself or herself is released. Middle school boys' service is
+postponed till they are 25. Students at higher schools and
+universities need not serve till 26 or 27. The service of young men
+abroad (i.e. elsewhere than China) is similarly postponed. (If still
+abroad at 37, they are entered in territorial army list and exempted.)
+Young men of education equal to that of middle-school graduates can
+volunteer for a year and pay 100 yen barracks expenses and be passed
+out with the rank of non-commissioned officers and be liable
+thereafter for only two terms of three months in territorial army.
+There are about half a million youths liable to conscription annually.
+To this number is to be added about 100,000 postponed cases. (In 1917,
+47,324 students, 32,263 abroad, 15,920 whereabouts unknown, 5,069 ill,
+3,147 criminal causes, 2,477 absentees, family reasons or crime.)
+Evasions in 1917: convicted, 234; suspected, 1,582. There are two
+conscription insurance companies with policies issued for 69 million
+yen. In one place charms against being conscripted are sold--at a
+shrine. Desertions in 1916 (7 per cent, officers) 956, of which 258
+received more than "light punishment." The conscripts suffering from
+trachoma were 15.3 per cent. and from venereal diseases 2.2 per cent.
+Heights (1918): under 5 _shaku_, 10.95 per cent.; 5-5.3 _shaku_, 53.34
+per cent.; 5.3-5.5 _shaku_, 33.13 per cent.; above 5.5 _shaku_, 2.58
+per cent. In these four classes there was a decrease in height in the
+first two of .39 per cent. and .57 per cent. respectively and an
+increase in the second two of .80 per cent. and 15 per cent.
+respectively.
+
+
+HOKKAIDO HOLDINGS [LXIV]. There are only 28 holdings of more than
+1,000 _chō_, 62 of over 500 _chō_, 161 over 100 _chō_ and 80 over 50
+_chō_. These large holdings are used for cattle breeding alone. There
+are no more than 620 holdings over 20 _chō_ and only 6,756 over 10.
+The number over 5 _chō_ is 51,877, and over 2 _chō_ 62,015. Under the
+area of 2 _chō_ there are as many as 40,928. Few of the largest
+holdings are worked as single farms. They are let in sections to
+tenants.
+
+
+CLAUSES IN A TENANT'S CONTRACT [LXV]. (1) The tenant must make at
+least 1 _chō_ of paddy every year. (2) Rent rice must be the best of
+the harvest, but the tenant may pay in money. (3) In the following
+cases the owner will give orders to the tenants: (_a_) If tenants do
+not use enough manure, (_b_) If there is disease of plants or insect
+pests, (_c_) If the tenant neglects to mend the road or other
+necessary work is neglected. (4) The owner will dismiss a tenant:
+(_a_) If the tenant does not pay his rent without reason, (_b_) If
+the tenant is neglectful of his work or is idle, (_c_) If the tenant
+is not obedient to the owner and does not keep this contract
+faithfully. (_d_) If the tenant is punished by the law. (5) When
+tenants leave without permission of absence more than twenty days the
+owner can treat as he will crops or buildings. (6) In the following
+cases the tenant must provide two labourers to the owner: mending
+road, drainage canal or bridges; mending water gate and irrigation
+canal; when necessary public works must be undertaken.
+
+
+CULTIVATED AREA AND LIVESTOCK [LXVI]. The area of cultivated land in
+Japan (counting paddy and arable) was, in 1919, 15,179,721 acres
+(6,071,888 _chō_). The number of animals kept for tillage purposes was
+1,199,970 horses and 1,036,020 homed cattle. The total number of
+horses in the country was only 1,510,626 and of horned cattle,
+excluding 207,891 returned as "calving" and 12,761 as "deaths,"
+1,307,120. Sheep, 4,546; goats, 91,777; swine, 398,155. The number of
+horned cattle slaughtered in the year was 226,108. Some 86,800 horses
+were also slaughtered. In Great Britain (arable, pasture and grazing
+area, 63 million acres) there were, in 1919, 11 million cattle, 25
+million sheep, 3 million pigs and 1-3/4 million horses.
+
+
+EGGS AND POULTRY [LXVII]. Even with the assistance of a tariff on
+Chinese eggs and of a Government poultry yard, which distributes birds
+and sittings at cost price, there were in 1919 14,105,085 fowls and
+11,278,783 chickens. There was an importation of 3-1/2 million "fresh"
+eggs.
+
+
+MEAT CONSUMPTION [LXVIII]. The present meat consumption by Japanese is
+uncertain, for there were in 1920[A] 3,579 foreign residents and
+22,104 visitors, and there is an exportation of ham and tinned and
+potted foods. The number of animals slaughtered in 1918 was: cattle
+and calves, 226,108; horses, 86,800; sheep and goats, 9,587; swine,
+327,074. Someone said to me that "the nutritious flesh of the horse
+should not be neglected, for the farmer is able to digest tough food."
+
+[Footnote A: In 1921 as many as 24,000 foreigners landed in nine months.]
+
+
+TUBERCULOSIS IN THE MILLS [LXIX]. When we remember early and
+mid-Victorian conditions in English mills and the conditions of the
+sweat shops in New York and other American cities (vide "Susan
+Lenox"), we shall be less inclined to take a harsh view of industrial
+Japan during a period of transition. But it is to the interest of the
+woollen industry no less than that of its workers that the fact should
+be stated that a competent authority has alleged that 50 per cent. of
+the employees in the mills suffer from consumption and that many girls
+sleep ten in a room of only ten-mat size. Improvements have been made
+lately under the influence of legislation and enlightened
+self-interest--the president of the largest company is a man of
+foresight and public spirit--but when I was in Japan, as I recorded in
+the _New East_ at the time, girls of 13 and 14 were working 11-hour
+day and night shifts in some mills.
+
+
+WOOLLEN FACTORIES [LXX]. In the Japanese woollen factory the cost of
+the hands is low individually, but expensive collectively. An expert
+suggested that it takes half a dozen of the unskilled girls to do the
+work of an English mill-girl. It is much the same with male labour.
+"An English worker may be expected to produce work equal to the output
+of four Japanese hands." Labour for heads of departments is also
+difficult to get. There are textile schools and probably a hundred men
+are graduated yearly. But the men are not all fitted for the jobs
+which are vacant. Therefore, one finds a man acting as an engineer
+who, because of his lack of technical experience, is unable to
+exercise sufficient control over the men in his charge. A curiosity of
+the industry is the high wages which many men of this sort command.
+They are really being paid better for inferior work than skilled men
+in England. The capital of the factories in 1918 was 46-1/2 million
+yen with 32-3/4 million paid up. Before the War the companies made 8
+per cent, as against the 2-1/2 per cent, which contents the English
+manufacturer, who has often side lines to help his profits. There was
+more than 100 million yen invested in the woollen textile business,
+manufacturing and retail. The industry did well during the War by
+supplies of cloth to Russia and of yarn and muslin to countries which
+ordinarily are able to supply themselves. In 1918 the production
+(woollen fabrics and mixtures) was valued at 85 million yen (muslin,
+32; cloth, 21; serges, 19; blankets, 3; flannel, 1; others, 8). The
+imports of wool were 60 million and of yarn 251,000. In 1919 the
+figures were 61 million and 710,000 respectively. In 1920 the exports
+were: woollen or worsted yarns, 1,437,926 yen; woollen cloth and
+serges, 3,019,382 yen; blankets, 1,024,540 yen; other woollens,
+548,922 yen. The Nippon Wool Weaving Company, which in 1921
+distributed a 20 per cent, ordinary and 20 per cent. extraordinary
+dividend, has 15 foreign experts.
+
+
+POPULATION OF HOKKAIDO [LXXI]. In 1869, 58,467; has risen as follows:
+
+Year            Population
+
+1874             174,368
+1884             276,414
+1894             616,650
+1904           1,233,669
+1914           1,869,582
+1919           2,137,700
+1920           2,359,097
+
+
+EXTENSION OF CROP-BEARING AREA OF JAPAN [LXXII]. There is normally
+added to the crop-bearing area about 53,000 _chō_ (132,000 acres) a
+year. From the new crop-bearing area every year is deducted the loss
+of arable land from floods, the extension of cities and towns and
+railways and the building of factories and institutions. This is
+reckoned at nearly 8,000 _chō_ in the year. One computation is that
+there are 2 million _chō_ (5 million acres) available for addition to
+the crop-bearing area, of which 1 million _chō_ would be convertible
+into paddies. A decision was taken by the Government in 1919 to bring
+250,000 _chō_ under cultivation within nine years from that date, and
+by 1920 some 20,000 _chō_ had been reclaimed. Persons who reclaim more
+than 5 _chō_ receive 6 per cent, of their expenditure.
+
+The increase in the area of cultivation has been as follows (in
+_chō_):
+
+|Year     |Paddy       |Upland Farm |Total       |
+--------------------------------------------------
+|1905     |2,841,471   |2,540,906   |5,382,378   |
+|1906     |2,849,288   |2,551,170   |5,400,459   |
+|1907     |2,858,628   |2,639,680   |5,498,309   |
+|1908     |2,882,426   |2,684,531   |5,566,958   |
+|1909     |2,902,899   |2,777,453   |5,680,352   |
+|1910     |2,910,970   |2,804,434   |5,715,405   |
+|1911     |2,923,520   |2,836,002   |5,759,522   |
+|1912     |2,939,445   |2,880,301   |5,819,756   |
+|1913     |2,953,947   |2,902,445   |5,856,392   |
+|1914     |2,961,639   |2,916,569   |5,878,208   |
+|1915     |2,974,042   |2,948,075   |5,922,118   |
+|1916     |2,987,579   |2,971,800   |5,959,379   |
+|1917     |3,005,679   |3,012,685   |6,018,364   |
+|1918     |3,011,000   |3,070,000   |6,081,000   |
+|1919     |3,021,879   |3,050,008   |6,071,887   |
+
+Whereas the percentage of cultivated land to uncultivated was in 1909
+14.6 per cent., it was in 1918 15.6 per cent.
+
+
+USE TO WHICH THE LAND IS PUT [LXXIII]. Here are the details of the
+division of the land in 1909 and 1918:
+
+Division of the Land    | Years  | Area in _chō_  | Percentage of
+                        |        |  in 000 's     |  Total Area
+------------------------|--------|----------------|--------------
+Total area              | 1909   | 38,847         | 100.0
+                        | 1918   | 38,864         | 100.0
+                        |        |                |
+Paddy fields            | 1909   | 2,903          | 7.5
+                        | 1918   | 3,011          | 7.7
+                        |        |                |
+Upland fields           | 1909   | 2,777          | 7.1
+                        |        | 3,070          | 7.9
+                        |        |                |
+Total arable as above   | 1909   | 5,680          | 14.6
+                        | 1918   | 6,081          | 15.6
+                        |        |                |
+Meadows and pastures    | 1909   | 39             | 0.1
+                        | 1918   | 43             | 0.1
+                        |        |                |
+Grass lands and heather | 1909   | 1,941          | 5.0
+(excluding pastures)    | 1918   | 3,509          | 9.0
+                        |        |                |
+Forests                 | 1909   | 22,072         | 56.8
+                        | 1918   | 18,783         | 48.3
+                        |        |                |
+Dwellings, factories,   | 1909   | 9,115          | 23.5
+roads, railways,        | 1918   | 10,448         | 27.0
+institutions, etc.      |        |                |
+------------------------|--------|----------------|--------------
+
+
+
+Crop                 | Chō       | Yield
+-----------------------------------------------------------
+Rice (1919)          | 3,104,611 | 60,818,163 _koku_;
+                     |           | value, 2,891,397,063 yen
+                     |           |
+Mulberry (1918)      | 508,993   | 6,832,000 _koku_;
+                     |           | raw silk, 7,891,000 _kwan_;
+                     |           | value,  546,543,000 yen
+                     |           |
+Tea (1919)           | 48,843    | 10,397,719 _kwan_
+                     |           | value, 33,377,460 yen
+                     |           |
+Barley (1919)        | 534,279   | 9,664,000 _koku_
+                     |           |
+Naked Barley (1919)  | 646,362   | 7,995,000 _koku_
+                     |           |
+Wheat (1919)         | 548,508   | 5,611,000 _koku_
+                     |           |
+Soy Bean (1918)      | 432,207   | 3,451,320 _koku_
+                     |           |
+Other Beans (1918)   |    --     | 1,237,000 _koku_
+                     |           |
+Peas (1918)          |    --     | 536,000 _koku_
+                     |           |
+Millets (1918)       |    --     | 2,903,000 _koku_
+                     |           |
+Buckwheat (1918)     | 136,313   | 852,000 _koku_
+                     |           |
+Sweet Potato (1918)  | 314,012   | 918,328,000 _kwan_
+                     |           |
+Irish Potato (1918)  | 132,090   | 323,930,000 _kwan_
+                     |           |
+Rape Seed (1918)     | 116,300   | 856,880 _kwan_
+                     |           |
+Sugar Cane (1918)    | 29,367    | 316,745,596 _kwan_
+                     |           |
+Indigo (1918)        | 5,570     | 2,717,757 _kwan_
+                     |           |
+Hemp (1918)          | 11,821    | 2,564,114 _kwan_
+                     |           |
+Cotton (1918)        | 2,930     | 681,021 _kwan_
+-----------------------------------------------------------
+
+Radish (1917), 576,746,000 _kwan_; taro (1917), 159,168,000 _kwan_;
+burdock (1917), 43,424,000 _kwan_; turnip (1917), 41,527,000 _kwan_;
+onion (1917), 37,601,000 _kwan_; carrot (1917), 26,976,000 _kwan_;
+cabbage (1917); 19,951,000 _kwan_; wax-tree seed (1918), 13,761,000
+_kwan_; rush for matting, (1918), 10,442,000 _kwan_; flax (1918),
+17,300,000 _kwan_; ginger (1918), 8,189,000 _kwan_; paper mulberry
+(1918), 6,964,000 _kwan_; peppermint (1918), 3,380,000 _kwan_; lily
+(1917), 682,000 _kwan_; chillies (1918), 441,000 _kwan_.
+
+
+EMIGRANTS AND RESIDENTS ABROAD (LXXIV). The latest official figures as
+to Japanese resident abroad, supplied in 1921 and probably gathered in
+1920, are:
+
+           Asia
+China                200,740
+Kwantung              79,307
+Tsingtao              23,555
+Philippines           11,156
+Strait Settlements    10,828
+Russian Asia           7,028
+Dutch India            4,436
+Hongkong               3,083
+India                  1,278
+Burma                    680
+Indo-China               371
+
+          Europe
+England                1,638
+Germany                  409
+Holland                  375
+France                   342
+Switzerland               87
+Italy                     34
+Belgium                   12
+Sweden                    10
+
+       North America
+U.S.A.               115,186
+Hawaii               112,221
+Canada                17,716
+Mexico                 2,198
+Panama                   225
+
+       South America
+Brazil                34,258
+Peru                  10,102
+Argentine              1,958
+Chile                    484
+Bolivia                  145
+
+           Africa
+South Africa              38
+Egypt                     35
+
+          Oceania
+Australia              5,274
+South Seas             3,399
+
+Total                648,915
+
+(The comparable return for 1918 was 493,845.) It has been suggested
+that these official statistics are incomplete; 7,000 as the number of
+Japanese in Russian territory seems low. Even during the War, in 1917,
+passports were issued to 62,000 Japanese going abroad. Of these,
+according to the _Japan Year-book_, 23,000 were made out for Siberia.
+Professor Shiga has stated that "no small number" of Japanese leave
+their country as stowaways.
+
+
+RISE IN PRODUCTION PER "TAN" OF PADDY [LXXV]. The 3 or 4 _koku_ is
+reached in favourable circumstances only. The average is far below
+this, but it rises, as shown in Appendix XV.
+
+Between 1887 and 1915 the area under barley and wheat rose from
+1,591,000 _chō_ to 1,812,000 _chō_, the yield from 15,822,000 _koku_
+to 23,781,000 _koku_ and the yield per _tan_ from .994 _koku_ to
+1.313. Between 1882 and 1914 the increase in the crops of the three
+varieties of millet averaged .515 _koku_ per _tan_. The increased
+yield of soy beans was .229 _koku_ per _tan_, of sweet potatoes 138
+_kwamme_ per _tan_ and of Irish potatoes 138 _kwamme_.
+
+
+LABOURERS [LXXVI]. When hired labour is required on farms it is
+supplied either by relatives and neighbours or by the surplus labour
+of strangers who are small farmers or members of a small farmer's
+family. According to the Department of Agriculture: "Ordinary fixed
+employees are upon an equal social footing. Apprentice labourers are
+very numerous. No working class holds a special social position as
+such. This is the greatest point of difference between the Japanese
+agricultural labour situation and that of Europe." The number of
+labourers in October 1920 was:
+
+                           |    Day    | Seasonal| All the
+                           |           |         |year round|   Total
+---------------------------|-----------|---------|----------|---------
+Labourers living  { male   |   119,676 |  52,007 |  49,110  |   220,793
+solely on wages,  { female |    80,870 |  42,193 |  23,862  |   146,925
+agricultural and  {        |           |         |          |
+other             {        |   200,546 |  94,200 |  72,972  |   367,718
+                           |           |         |          |
+                           |           |         |          |
+Labourers who are { male   |   949,266 | 407,596 | 188,369  | 1,546,231
+labourers part    { female |   646,720 | 405,131 | 116,152  | 1,168,003
+of their time              |           |         |          |
+                           | 1,595,986 | 813,727 | 304,521  | 2,714,234
+                           |           |         |          |
+      Total .  .  .  .  .  | 1,796,532 | 907,927 | 377,493  | 3,081,952
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+In addition to the total of 3,081,952 "there are 32,973 agricultural
+labourers who are boys and girls under 14."
+
+
+DECREASE OF FARMERS TILLING THEIR OWN LAND [LXXVII]. In 1914 the
+number of farmers owning their own land was 1,731,247; in 1919 it had
+fallen to 1,700,747. In 1914 the number of tenants was 1,520,476; in
+1919 it had increased to 1,545,639. That is, there were 30,500 fewer
+landowners and 25,163 more tenants. During the period between 1914 and
+1919 the number of farmers (landowners and tenants) increased 30,293.
+While from 1909 to 1914 the percentage of landowners fell from 33.27
+to 31.73, the percentage of tenant farmers rose from 27.69 to 27.87
+and the percentage of persons partly owner and partly tenant from
+39.04 to 40.40. See Appendix XXXIV.
+
+
+RURAL AND URBAN POPULATIONS [LXXVIII]. The following table shows the
+percentage of the population living in communes under 5,000 and 10,000
+inhabitants in 1913 and 1918:
+
+ Year | Percentage of Population living in | Percentage of Families
+      |           Communities              | engaged in Agricultural
+      |------------------------------------|  to Total Families in
+      |  under 5,000  |  under 10,000      |       Japan Proper
+------|---------------|--------------------|------------------------
+ 1913 |     50.44     |       72.39        |          57.6
+ 1918 |     46.23     |       67.71        |          52.3
+------|---------------|--------------------|------------------------
+      |     -4.21     |       -4.68        |          -5.3
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+These figures clearly indicate the decrease of the rural population.
+To take 10,000 inhabitants as the demarcation line between urban and
+rural population is probably less correct than to take a demarcation
+line of 7,500 inhabitants. A mean of the two percentages of
+populations living in communities under 5,000 and under 10,000
+inhabitants shows 61.41 per cent, in 1913 and 56.97 per cent, in 1918,
+a decrease of 4.44 per cent. The variation between this result and the
+preceding one has a simple explanation. About 30 per cent, of the
+families engaged in agriculture carry on their farming as an accessory
+business. Teachers, priests and mechanics may all have patches of
+land. On the other hand, a small number of people have no land.
+Therefore, the percentage of the rural population is only slightly
+higher than that of the families engaged in agriculture. In 1918 there
+were 5,476,784 farming families (to 10,460,440 total families or 52.3
+per cent.), and if we multiply by 5-1/3--the average number of persons
+per family in Japan is 5.317 (1918)--to find the population dependent
+on agriculture, the number is 29,209,514. The total population of
+Japan in 1918 was 55,667,711. The Department of Agriculture has stated
+that on the basis of the census of 1918 the number of persons in
+households engaged in agriculture was 52 per cent. of the population.
+According to one set of statistics the percentage of farming families
+to non-farming families fell from 64 per cent, in 1904 to 60.3 per
+cent. in 1910 and 56 in 1914. We shall probably not be far wrong in
+supposing the rural population to be at present about 55 per cent, of
+the population. The percentage of persons actually working on the
+farms is another matter. As has been seen, some 30 per cent, of the
+5-1/2 million farming families are engaged in agriculture as a
+secondary business only. It may be, therefore, that the 5-1/2 million
+families do not actually yield more than 10 million effective farm
+hands.
+
+
+IS RICE THE RIGHT CROP FOR JAPAN [LXXIX]. Mr. Katsuro Hara, of the
+College of Literature, Kyoto University, asks, "Is Japan specially
+adapted for the production of rice?" and answers: "Southern Japan is
+of course not unfit. But rice does not conform to the climate of
+northern Japan. This explains the reason why there have been repeated
+famines. By the choice of this uncertain kind of crop as the principal
+foodstuff the Japanese have been obliged to acquiesce in a
+comparatively enhanced cost of living. The tardiness of civilisation
+may be perhaps partly attributed to this fact. Why did our forefathers
+prefer rice to other cereals? Was a choice made in Japan? If the
+choice was made in this country the unwisdom of the choice and of the
+choosers is now very patent."
+
+Along with this expression of opinion may be set the following
+figures, showing the total production of rice and of other grain crops
+during the past six years, in thousands of _koku_:
+
+---------|----------|---------------|--------|-------------|--------
+   Year  |  Barley  | Naked Barley  | Wheat  | Barley and  |  Rice
+         |          |               |        |   Wheat     |
+---------|----------|---------------|--------|-------------|--------
+   1915  | 10,253   |    8,296      | 5,231  |   23,781    | 55,924
+   1916  |  9,559   |    7,921      | 5,869  |   23,350    | 58,442
+   1917  |  9,169   |    8,197      | 6,786  |   24,155    | 54,658
+   1918  |  8,368   |    7,777      | 6,431  |   22,576    | 54,699
+   1919  |  9,664   |    7,995      | 5,611  |   23,271    | 60,818
+---------|----------|---------------|--------|-------------|--------
+
+From 1910 to 1919 the areas under barleys and wheat were, in _chō_,
+1,771,655-1,729,148, and under rice 2,949,440-3,104,611.
+
+
+INNER COLONISATION _v_. FOREIGN EXPANSION [LXXX]. _An Introduction to
+the History of Japan_ (1921), written by an Imperial University
+professor and published by the Yamato Society, the members of which
+include some of the most distinguished men in Japan, says: "It is
+doubtful whether the backwardness of the north can be solely
+attributed to its climatic inferiority. Even in the depth of winter
+the cold in the northern provinces cannot be said to be more
+unbearable than that of the Scandinavian countries or of north-eastern
+Germany. The principal cause of the retardation of progress in
+northern Japan lies rather in the fact that it is comparatively
+recently exploited.... The northern provinces might have become far
+more populous, civilised and prosperous than we see them now.
+Unfortunately for the north, just at the most critical time in its
+development the attention of the nation was compelled to turn from
+inner colonisation to foreign relations. The subsequent acquisition of
+dominions oversea made the nation still more indifferent."
+
+According to a report of the Hokkaido Government in 1921, the number
+of immigrants during the latest three year period was 90,000, and one
+and a half million acres are available for cultivation and
+improvement.
+
+
+AGRICULTURE _v_. COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY [LXXXI]. There is supposed to
+be more money invested in land than in commerce or industry.
+Comprehensive figures of a trustworthy kind establishing the relative
+importance of agriculture, commerce and industry are not readily
+obtained. "This is a question," writes a Japanese professor of
+agriculture to me, "which we should like to study very much."
+Industrial and commercial figures at the end of and immediately after
+the War are not of much use because of the inflation of that period.
+The annual value of agricultural production before the War was about
+1,800 million yen; it must be by now about 2,500 or 3,000. In 1912,
+according to the Department of Finance, the debt of the agricultural
+population was 740 million yen. In 1916 the Japan Mortgage Bank and
+the prefectural agricultural and industrial banks had together
+advanced to agricultural organisations 110 millions and to other
+borrowers 273 millions. In 1915 co-operative credit associations had
+advanced 45 millions to farmers and 11 millions to other borrowers.
+The paid-up capital of companies, was, in 1913, 1,983 million, of
+which 27 million was agricultural, and in 1916, 2,434 million, of
+which 31 million was agricultural. The reserves were, in 1913, 542
+million, of which 1 million was agricultural, and in 1916, 841
+million, of which 3 were agricultural. (For some reason or other,
+"fishing" is included under "agricultural." On careful dissection I
+find that of the 45 million of investments credited to agriculture in
+1918, only 28 million are purely agricultural.) The land tax is
+estimated to yield 73 million yen in 1920-1. It is 2-1/2 per cent. on
+residential land, 4.5 per cent. on paddy and cultivated land--3.2 per
+cent, in Hokkaido--and 5.5 per cent. on other land--4 per cent. in
+Hokkaido.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+_This Index may be regarded as a Glossary inasmuch as every Japanese
+word which occurs in the book will be found in it. The meaning is
+usually given on the page the number of which comes first._
+
+132 (2) _signifies that there are two references on page 132 to the
+subject indexed._
+
+_Such subjects as Agriculture, Hokkaido, Labour, Paddies, Rice and
+Sericulture are indexed at length, but some matters which relate to
+them and are of general interest appear in the body of the Index._
+
+Abbot and Ronin 333
+
+Abiko 105
+
+Ability 66
+
+Abortion 65, 303;
+  Abortifacient 332
+
+Abroad, first, 235
+
+Accommodation with the West 363
+
+Acreage, see Agriculture
+
+Acting 115 (2), 320
+
+Adjustment 85, 186, 194, 197, 210, 232, 365, 370, 380;
+  Cost 72;
+  Cottages 72;
+  Graves 72;
+  Method and Results 71-2;
+  Statistics 72
+
+Admonition, see Police, 54
+
+Adoption 21, 328
+
+Adulteration 356
+
+Æ 99, 321
+
+Aerated waters 119
+
+Aeroplanes 31
+
+Aestheticism 203
+
+Affection, Question by a Japanese, 144
+
+Affinity 272
+
+Afforestation, see Deforestation,
+  Floods, Tree planting; 23, 92-3, 97, 152, 177, 194, 197, 228, 233,
+  240, 260, 318, 370
+
+Africa 410
+
+Agriculture, see Adjustment, Animals under different names, Area,
+  Cattle, Crops under different names, Cultivation, Farmers, Grain,
+  Hokkaido, Implements under different names, Land new, Land available,
+  Land utilised, Manure, Milk, Paddies, Peasant Proprietors, Tenants,
+  Tools, Rice and other crops, Sericulture, Upland;
+  Advantages 365, 367;
+  Accessory business 412;
+  American, proposed study of, vii;
+  Arable 409, (British) 385;
+  Areas 394, 400,
+    quarter acre 89,
+    one and a quarter acre to five acres 89,
+    two 210,
+    two and a half 9, 284,
+    three 10,
+    five 284,
+    seven and a half 89, 373,
+    ten 10,
+    twelve and a half 207,
+    fifteen 10,
+    twenty-five 213,
+    one _tan_ 232,
+    five 184,
+    six 302,
+    eight 304, 383,
+    twelve 270,
+    fifteen and a half 373,
+    one _chō_ 220, 304, 377 (3), 379, 380, 385,
+    one and a half 379,
+    two 380,
+    two and a half,
+    see Hokkaido,
+    three 373, 380,
+    four 10,
+    four to four and a half 338,
+    four to five 207,
+    five 310, 337-8,
+    seven 10, 338, 373,
+    eight 310, 373,
+    ten 28,
+    ten to fifteen 28, 338,
+    thirty 338,
+    sixty-two 374;
+  Associations against landlords 88;
+  v. Armaments 93, 359;
+  an Author on viii;
+  Based on rice 343;
+  Basis of nation ix, 92;
+  Calendar of operations 136;
+  Compared with British 390;
+  Capitalisation 368-9;
+  College 195;
+  Criticism of 362, 365, (backbreaking) 75;
+  v. Commerce and industry 180, 414;
+  Commercial side 65;
+  Company 207;
+  Consolidation of holdings 364;
+  Crop statistics errors 404;
+  "Encourager" 176;
+  Experiment station 158, 176-7, 207, 370;
+  Experts 207, 283, (respect for) 54;
+  Foundation and means to an end ix, 27;
+  Foreign 365, 367;
+  v. "Foreign relations" 414;
+  and Family system 330;
+  Faults of 65;
+  like Gardening 307;
+  God of 145;
+  Goddess of 312;
+  Helpful 180;
+  Holdings, Consolidation of 368;
+  How to teach 27;
+  Grazing 240, (British) 385;
+  Hydraulic engineering 149;
+  Industry and Commerce 284;
+  Implements 268;
+  Improvement, Principles of 370;
+  Land, how used, 408;
+  Machinery 365, 367-8-9;
+  in praise of 10;
+  Methods 208;
+  Limitations imposed on 365 (2), 367;
+  Merits 365;
+  National Agricultural Society 378;
+  Night work 359;
+  Number of families engaged in 412;
+  Relations to national welfare 369, 370-1;
+  Pasture 111, 409, (British) 385;
+  Petite Culture 346;
+  Production not final aim 367;
+  Profitable 232, 373;
+  Progress 261;
+  Remedies 368-9, 370;
+  Revolutionising 367;
+  and Religion 231;
+  Schools, see Schools, 176, 375;
+  Shortcomings 365;
+  Strikes 88;
+  Students not leaving land 285;
+  Subsistence provided by 365;
+  Small farms decreasing 394;
+  Tenants' Movement, see Landlords;
+  Without rice 381 (2)
+
+Aichi 1-67, 84, 345
+
+"Aiming at being Distinguished" 124
+
+Ainu x, 25
+
+Akagi 315
+
+Akita 189, 190, 193
+
+Alimentary tract, 348, 351
+
+Allah 98
+
+"All family smiling" 137
+
+Alpinist 290
+
+Alps, 127, 152, 262
+
+_Amado_ 277
+
+"A man's a man," etc. 95
+
+_Amé_ 191
+
+America,
+  see Hokkaido, 137, 141, 288, 290, 363 (2);
+  Rice culture 365-6
+
+_Amida_ xxx, 129
+
+_Amma_ 108, 133
+
+Ammonia water 177, 251
+
+Amphibious labour 358
+
+Amusements, see Farmers, 180, 287, 374, 378
+
+Ancestors 19, 26, 33, 38 (3), 58, 61, 67, 94, 178
+
+Anchors 211
+
+Angelo, Michael, 103
+
+Angling 245
+
+Anglo-Japanese Alliance xv;
+  Anglo-Saxons 203
+
+Animals
+  Bird artists 344;
+  Buddhism and 59;
+  Food, see Meat, 349;
+  Industry 346, 348;
+  Knack of looking after 343;
+  Liking for 221, 343;
+  Power 365, 370;
+  Tillage 406
+
+Anjo 57
+
+Anniversaries 50
+
+Antelopes 110
+
+Anti-Landlord movement 37, 88
+
+Ants 47
+
+Aomori 189, 194, 195, 334, 354, 391
+
+Aoyama 66
+
+"A plain householder" 150
+
+Apostle and artist 90
+
+Appetiser 268
+
+Apples, see Hokkaido, 194, 289, 402
+
+Appointments 125;
+  Tax 21
+
+Apprentices 411
+
+Apricots 289
+
+Aqueduct 64
+
+Archery 39, 40, 159
+
+Architecture 198
+
+Ardour 124
+
+Area 65, 390;
+  and Habitable compared with other countries 385, 392;
+  per Family 42, 89 (2)
+
+Armaments 93, 97, 394;
+  U.S. expenditure 394
+
+Armour 36, 40
+
+Arm rest 246, 319
+
+Army 202, 346, 350, 360 (2), 403;
+  Discipline 361;
+  and Farmer ix;
+  Officers and Agriculture 362;
+  Railway service 297
+
+Arnold, Matthew, 24, 272
+
+Arrests postponed 280
+
+Arson 56, 280, 282
+
+Art 99, 214, 369;
+  Degenerated 99;
+  and Farmer ix;
+  Hills in 120;
+  Korean 103;
+  Influence of Western 103-4;
+  Artists 99, 100;
+  Sketches at festivals 193;
+  Artistry 317;
+  Artistic treasures 369;
+  Artistic world 102-3-4-5, 328
+
+Artificials, see Manure
+
+Artisans 317;
+  with land and houses 268;
+  see Farmers
+
+"_Asahi_" 90, 109
+
+Asama, Mt., 143
+
+Asceticism 101
+
+Asia, see West and East, 202;
+  Residents in 410;
+  Asiatic Mainland 351, 363;
+  Asiatic Society of Japan 364
+  "Aspiring" young men 135
+
+Assaults 282
+
+Assentation 14
+
+Associations against Landlords 88;
+  for Economical agricultural Students 176;
+  Spirit of 16
+
+"At twenty I found" 150
+
+Athletics,
+  see under different names, 159
+
+Attempts to deceive the West 174
+
+Attitude
+  for foreign student 254;
+  of world, 371;
+  to something higher;
+  see Materialism, Spirituality
+
+Attorney-General, 345
+
+Audience, 24
+
+Australia, 127, 352-3, 363 (2), 388;
+  Might have possessed, 363
+
+Author
+  Attitude towards Japan, xii;
+  before domestic shrine, 33;
+  Carried, 308;
+  Chats in trains, 176;
+  "Fortune", 138;
+  First Englishman in place, 126;
+  Governor and, 84;
+  on Hearn, 254;
+  Some Conclusions, see Hokkaido, 369;
+  and Police, 53;
+  Reception at Shinto Shrine, 45;
+  Shinto address to, 46;
+  Speeches, 6, 26, 31, 254;
+  Tree planting, 45;
+  Welcome, 22;
+  at Wrestling match, 297
+
+Authority
+  Disobedience to, 285;
+  Power going, 330
+
+Autobiography of a Farmer-Egotist, 61
+
+Autographs, 38, 324
+
+Automobile, see Chauffeur, 205
+
+Autumn, 214
+
+"Average workers", 62, 377
+
+Awakening, 324
+
+Axholme, Isle of, 71
+
+_Aza_ xxv, 15, 16, 262, 315
+
+Azaleas, 316
+
+
+Babies, 285
+
+Backbreaking, 75, 208
+
+Back to the Land, 88
+
+Backwardness of North,
+  see Japan, Northern
+
+Bacon, 347
+
+Bacon, Lord, xii, 309
+
+Bactericides, 60
+
+"Bad tea has its tolerable," etc., 123
+
+Bag and string, 312
+
+Balls, Black and red, 19
+
+Bamboo, 48, 318, 244, 248;
+  Grass, 70, 108, 352, 368;
+  and Mice, 108;
+  Rate of growth, 242;
+  Shoots, 136;
+  Work, 248
+
+_Bancha_, 294, 403
+
+Bankruptcy, 138
+
+Banks, 205, 303, 402, 414
+
+Banqueting, 357
+
+_Banzai_, 43
+
+Barbers, 224, 267
+
+Barefoot, 64
+
+Bark strips, 190
+
+Barley, 146, 175, 196, 307, 313 (3), 349, 351, 386, 389, 391, 409, 410;
+  Big crop, 313;
+  Husking, 389;
+  Naked, 409;
+  with and without Rice, 47, 80, 85, 383, 387;
+  Production compared with Wheat, 413
+
+Barons x, 204
+
+Barriers ix, 104
+
+Barter, 122
+
+Barton, Sir E., 9
+
+_Basha_, see Hokkaido, 244;
+  story, 217
+
+Baskets, 177, 215
+
+Baths x, 17, 50, 82, 109, 112, 116-7, 190, 203, 215, 256, 277, 314, 354;
+  "A moral bath", 94;
+  Bathing, 125, 152, 186
+
+Battleship, 235
+
+Bayonets, Imitation, 282
+
+Bazin René, 141
+
+Beans, see Soya, 147, 199, 307, 383, 409;
+  Cake, 386
+
+Beardsley, Aubrey, 98, 103
+
+Bears, see Hokkaido, 110
+
+Beauty, see Hokkaido, 104, 127, 298
+
+"Be diligent", 158;
+  "Be serious", 112
+
+Beef, see Kobe beef, 259, 349, 350;
+  Essence, 158
+
+Beer, see Hokkaido, 119, 396
+
+Bees, 196, 348
+
+Beggars, 265, 324
+
+Begonia, 213
+
+Behaviour, Training in good, 259
+
+Belgium, 386
+
+Beliefs, see Customs, 310, 331;
+
+Believers, 63;
+  Believer and ne'er do well, 5
+
+Belly cloths, 269
+
+_Benjo_, 151, 192, 374
+
+Ben Nevis, 394
+
+_Bento_ 110, 268, 279
+
+Bergson, 99
+
+_Beri beri_, 79
+
+Berry, Sir G., 9
+
+Better living, 370;
+  Better world, 90
+
+_Bi_, 126
+
+Bible, 95
+
+Bicycles, 18, 150, 220
+
+Binyon, L., 292
+
+Birches, 316
+
+Birds, 25, 117, 344
+
+Births,
+  see Still;
+  Celebration of, 302;
+  Forbidden, 236;
+  Rate, 392;
+  Tax, 21
+
+Biscuits, 270
+
+_Biwa_, 289
+
+Black and white company, 187
+
+Black Country, 132
+
+"Black saké", 79
+
+Blacksmith, 264
+
+Blake, William, 98, 103, 105-6
+
+Blind,
+  see _Amma_, 192, 300;
+  Advantage of Blindness, 232;
+  Blind guides, 369;
+  Headman, 229
+
+Blood and thunder stories 121
+
+Boar day 126
+
+Boasting 17
+
+Boat, sacred, 257
+
+Body 226
+
+Boehme 99
+
+Bog 390
+
+"Bold is the donkey driver" 98
+
+Bolting ideas 331
+
+_Bon_ 180, 190, 265, 267, 271-2, 302, 361;
+  Songs and dances 189, 190, 197 (2), 274
+
+Bonins 391
+
+Bonito 297
+
+Books 159, 190, 319, 401;
+  Cheap 212;
+  Faults of many about Japan 254;
+  Foreign 141, 196, 248;
+  In demand 60;
+  In a Village Library 60;
+  Shops 244
+
+Booths 115
+
+Boots 236, 284, 346
+
+Borneo 127
+
+Borrow vi, 119, 283
+
+Borrowing,
+  see Credit, _Ko, Tanomoshi_; 125, 183
+
+Boswell, 140, 175
+
+Bottles, tied with rope, 119
+
+Bowing 44 (2), 46, 83, 121, 286, 313
+
+Bowels 348, 351
+
+Bowls, Turning, 111;
+  at shrine 303
+
+Box for letters for Police 111
+
+Boy
+  Growth of 113;
+  Labour 411;
+  Tradesmen's 315;
+  Reformation of 178;
+  Running away 322;
+  Stolen 286;
+  "Boy San" 103
+
+Brazil 401
+
+Bread 80 (2), 346 (2), 350-1 (2), 383
+
+Bream 297
+
+Breath 117
+
+Brewing, see Hokkaido, 119
+
+Bribery 208, 400; 123, 303
+
+Bride 21;
+  Chest 129, 379
+
+Bridges 128, 132, 240;
+  Mysteriously repaired, 287;
+  Suspension 209
+
+Briefness 292
+
+Bright, John, 203
+
+Britons, see Hokkaido, 403
+
+Broadmindedness 326
+
+Brontë, E., 99
+
+Brothels 56, 222, 243
+
+Brother, Eldest, 19, 329
+
+Brotherly union 94-5
+
+Buckwheat, see Hokkaido; 111, 122, 243, 264, 381, 409;
+  "As white as snow" 111
+
+Buddha 1, 3, 4, 5, 19, 26 (2), 51, 58 117, 125, 142, 205-6;
+  Inferior 139;
+  Heads 310.
+  --Buddhism 19, 30, 42, 57 (2), 63 (3), 96, 101,
+  197, 205, 210, 212, 322, 324;
+    and Animal life 59, 345, 347;
+    behind the age 6;
+    without Buddha 322, 327;
+    and Christianity 59, 100-1, 324, 362;
+    Definition of 93;
+    Difficulty of getting a general view of 327, 321;
+    England and 100;
+    of old time 258;
+    Too aristocratic 1
+  Buddhist 91, 96, 129;
+  Gatherings 231;
+  Influence 259;
+  Literature 327, 331;
+  Real 63;
+  Sects, under names;
+  Services 3, 205 (2), 270;
+  Strict 30;
+  Y.M.A. 124;
+  Y.W.A. 124.
+  --Buddhist Priests, see _Bon_; 1-7, 96, 113, 118, 134, 142,
+  194, 231, 240, 258, 264, 269, 270 (2)-1-2, 302, 314;
+    Priest's man 270-1;
+    Succession to 135;
+    Wives 6, 270;
+  Shrines 220,
+    Value of 273;
+  Temples, 113, 123, 134, 142, 176, 180, 211, 244, 249, 258-9, 269,
+  310, 327;
+    Architecture 134,
+    "Church" 134,
+    New, 313,
+    Sleeping in x;
+    Two months in 262,
+    Underground passage 142
+
+Buffoon 276
+
+Bugles 15-17
+
+Bulls 18, 249, 250;
+  Fighting 228
+
+Burden of the Old 100
+
+Burdock 48, 146, 410
+
+Bureau of Horse Politics 195;
+  of Hygiene 350
+
+Burials, see Graves, 121, 267, 306;
+  at Sea 225
+
+Burnham, Lord, 9
+
+Burns, Robert, 107, 288
+
+_Bushido_ 25, 140
+
+Businesses, linked, 315;
+  "Business, My," 326
+
+Butter 142, 270, 346
+
+Butterflies 127, 287
+
+
+Cabbage 53, 213, 440
+
+Caffeine 292, 403
+
+Cairo 390
+
+Calendar 136
+
+California 290, 363, 365-6
+
+Camphor trees 219
+
+Canada 388
+
+Cancer 268
+
+Candles 340
+
+Canning, see Hokkaido, 368;
+  Canned meat and fish 268
+
+Cape 267, 270
+
+Capes 47
+
+Cape Wrath 358
+
+Capitalism 368-9
+
+Caps 114, 301
+
+Caramels 272
+
+Carbon bisulphide 60
+
+"Carelessness" 54
+
+Carlyle, T., 90-1, 94, 99
+
+Carp, 39, 158, 210, 299
+
+Carpenter 99, 267, 317
+
+Carrier's conversation 109
+
+Carrot 410
+
+Carts 209;
+  Push 194
+
+Carving 269
+
+"Case for the Goat, The," 347
+
+Cast 94
+
+Cats 47, 131, 221, 345
+
+Cattle, see Cow, Oxen, Bulls, Hokkaido; 23, 194-5, 230, 240, 243, 316,
+  347, 381, 406;
+  Keeping 194, 259, 402;
+  Thieves 195
+
+Cedar wood 211
+
+Cells 116, 143
+
+Censorship 401
+
+Census 393-4
+
+Cereals 367, 404
+
+Certificate of merit 213
+
+Cezanne 98, 103
+
+_Chadai_ 148
+
+Chaff 386
+
+Chainmakers 170
+
+Chairman 24
+
+Champagne 140
+
+Changes, seeming, 331
+
+_Cha-no-yu_ 31, 214, 319
+
+Character 88, 151, 201, 203-4-5-6-7 258, 259, 269, 288, 290, 311, 317,
+  323, 331-2;
+  Nature and 99;
+  Weakness of 101;
+  Wish to give before have anything 102;
+  Chinese 39
+
+Charcoal 111, 122-3, 196
+
+Charitable Institutions 59, 376
+
+Charms 41, 47, 121, 125, 223, 245
+
+Charring 227
+
+Chastity 114, 139, 149
+
+Chauffeur 240, 246
+
+Chavannes, Puvis de, 98, 103
+
+Cheek-binding 286
+
+Cheerfulness 304, 317
+
+Cheese 345
+
+Chemist, Distinguished, 10
+
+Chenille 142
+
+Cherries 295, 319;
+  Poems 288;
+  Refineries 226
+
+Chestnuts 121
+
+Chiba 268, 297, 309, 321
+
+Chicken 110, 349
+
+Chief Constable, Influence of, 118
+
+_Chihō_ 400
+
+Children 110, 112, 117, 203, 216, 323, 377;
+  Childbirth 268;
+  Ages of 113;
+  Assaults on 229;
+  British exploitation of 170;
+  Charm to obtain 314;
+  Contracts 286;
+  Crimes against 114;
+  Marriage 197;
+  Politeness 121;
+  Services for 130;
+  and Temple 58;
+  What will he become? 60;
+  Workers, see Labour, 314
+
+Chillies 41
+
+Chimneys 147, 151
+
+China 110, 127, 143, 214, 256, 306, 344, 347, 388, 390, 396-7, 404;
+  War 85, 311;
+  Chinaman in Formosa story 96;
+  Tea 296;
+  Relations with 91;
+  Chinese competition 399;
+  Labour 363;
+  Prisoners 307;
+  Scriptures not understood 331;
+  Sheep and wool 353-4-5-6
+
+_Cho_ xxiv;
+  _Chō_ xxv
+
+Chokai, Mount, 182
+
+Chopsticks 81
+
+Chōsen, see Korea
+
+Christ 55, 95, 96, 127;
+  Christianity, see Hokkaido, 96, 99, 101, 198, 205, 324;
+  Christian, 99, 203, 362 (3);
+  a Japanese question 144;
+  and Buddhism 101, 108, 324, 327, 362;
+  Conceptions 96,
+  Early 91;
+  Essence of 94 (2);
+  Ethics of 362;
+  Influence of 94;
+  Japanese 83, 135, 261;
+  and Personality 362;
+  and Social reform 362;
+  Temperament 327;
+  Christmas 318;
+  Churches 96, 362
+
+Chrysanthemum 318
+
+Cicada 344
+
+Cider champagne 119
+
+Cigarettes 82, 288, 400
+
+Cimabue 106
+
+Cities xxv;
+  workers 87
+
+Civilisation 96, 141, 216, 229
+
+Clan 188
+
+Classes 94, 251
+
+Cleanliness 326, 354
+
+Clerks 205
+
+Climate, see Hokkaido, Weather; 88, 140, 195-6, 197, 198, 299, 309, 327,
+  358, 363, 365, 372, 390, 413
+
+Cloak 47, 76
+
+Clock 252
+
+Clothing, see Farmers, 19, 30, 74, 125, 193, 307, 312, 317, 321, 323,
+  330, 346, 355-6-7, 374, 378, 380, 382;
+  Advantages and Disadvantages of 356;
+  Cotton and Silk v. Wool 356;
+  Foreign 283, 346, 352
+
+Clover 263
+
+Clubhouse 305
+
+Coal, see Hokkaido, 226, 396
+
+Coasting steamers 209;
+  coastwise traffic 256
+
+Coat 47
+
+Cobbett, William, ix
+
+Cockfighting 228
+
+Coffin 121, 248
+
+Cold 261;
+  Catching 312
+
+Collectors, Boy, 230
+
+Colleges 158
+
+Colony 207
+
+Colouring 295
+
+Comeliness 204
+
+Comfort 201, 203;
+  Bags 58
+
+Comic interlude 84
+
+Commerce, 414;
+  Uselessness of some, 369;
+  Commercial crash 87
+
+Common good, Work for, 19;
+  Common humanity 34;
+  "Common people at the gateway" 252;
+  Common purpose in mankind 56
+
+Commune 268;
+  Communal labour 263;
+  Communistic 212
+
+Communities under 5,000 and 10,000 population 412
+
+Companies 414
+
+Complaint boxes 18
+
+Concentration 206, 317
+
+Concrete 22, 214, 325
+
+Concubines 95, 322
+
+Conduct 200, 361
+
+Coney Island 325
+
+Confucianism 91, 96, 101, 205 (3), 214, 322
+
+Confusion 101
+
+Conscience 201
+
+Conscription, see Soldiers, 19, 65, 123, 284, 311 (2), 327, 331, 364;
+  Statistics 404
+
+Conservative view 331
+
+Consolation 201, 321
+
+Constitutional Party 395
+
+"Contagion of foreigners" 117
+
+Contentment 7, 259, 264, 302, 323
+
+Contracts 194, 286
+
+Controversy 48
+
+Conversation, Subjects of, 129, 282
+
+Conviction 37, 331
+
+Cooking 350 (2)
+
+Coolies 345
+
+Co-operation, see Cocoons, Hokkaido,
+_Kō_, _Tanomoshi_, 7, 28-9 (2), 37 (2), 43, 47, 50, 58, 64, 85,
+  118, 124, 133, 136, 150, 185, 187, 194, 230, 305 (2), 364, 414;
+  Capital for 48;
+  More 370
+
+Copper 92, 124, 226, 396
+
+Coronation 21;
+  Rice Ceremony 82;
+  Millet 213
+
+Corruption 208, 400
+
+Cosmos 202, 206
+
+Cottages, see Houses
+
+Cotton, 132, 137, 223, 258, 404;
+  Clothing 346;
+  Chinese competition 399;
+  Factories 174;
+  Industry 354;
+  Loom 220;
+  Factory Manager's _Manchester Guardian_ article 399;
+  Silk v. Wool 366
+
+Couch grass 265
+
+Counsel 187
+
+Countess 213
+
+Country folk xiv,
+  Countryman ix, xiv, 107, 141, 192, 233, 283, 302, 324, 331;
+  Countryside 148,
+    contrasted with Western 298, 313;
+  County families and Country-house life 34
+
+County Agricultural Association 150 (2)
+
+Courage, Moral, 327
+
+Courbet 103
+
+Court lady 108
+
+Courtesy, see Politeness, 36
+
+Cows,
+  see Paddies;
+  First milking 235;
+  Oxen, 209, 235, 381 (2)
+
+Crab, Land, 249
+
+Cradle 279
+
+Craftsmanship 314, 317, 369
+
+Crashaw 99
+
+Crater 108-9
+
+Credit,
+  see Cheap money;
+  Cooperation 181, 370, 414
+
+Crematoria 48, 177
+
+Crest, see _Mon_
+
+Crime,
+  see Police, 54, 279, 303;
+  Charges not proceeded with 113;
+  Table of crimes 376;
+  Ex-criminals 143
+
+Crimea 390
+
+Crisis, Industrial and Commercial, 87
+
+Crops 313, 380-1;
+  see Agriculture, Paddies, Upland;
+  Area devoted to each 408-9;
+  Better 19, 370;
+  Competitions to increase 58;
+  Drying 208;
+  Increase compared with area 364
+
+Crow 320
+
+Crowds 250, 259
+
+Crown Prince 282
+
+Cruelty to Animals 344-5
+
+Cryptomeria 6, 40, 45, 61-2, 117, 121, 131-2, 190, 316, 394
+
+Cuckoo 315
+
+Cucumbers 146, 322
+
+Cultivation, see
+  Agriculture, Backbreaking, Cows, Harrowing, Hoes, Horses, Mattock,
+  Paddy, Pony, Ploughing, Rice, Seed, Spade;
+  Area compared with Great Britain 89;
+  Area under 223;
+  Doubling population 97;
+  Increase of area 364, 414;
+  Two or three crops 364;
+  Japan and Great Britain 305;
+    in relation to Stock 406;
+  Methods to be reported 188;
+    in proportion to Wild 408;
+  Prizes 58;
+  Too intensive 233;
+  yearly increase of 408
+
+Culture, see Education, 204
+
+Curio Collectors 2
+
+Curiosity 279
+
+Currency xxiv
+
+Currents, Warm and Cold, 118, 175, 195
+
+Customs 66, 182, 310, 322-3;
+  Houses unprofitable 256,
+  World realisation of cost and inconvenience 256
+
+Cutting out the foreigner 369
+
+Cuttle fish, see Squid, Octopus; 46, 318
+
+Cyanide 177
+
+Cymbals 272
+
+"Daffin" 313
+
+Dagger 40
+
+_Daikon_ 23, 130, 309, 314, 345, 409
+
+Daikon (island) 256
+
+_Daily Mail_ 345
+
+Daimyo 33, 39, 144, 176, 198, 205, 210, 246, 395;
+  ex-Daimyo 329;
+  Castle 209
+
+_Dai Nippon Nōkai_ 320
+
+_Dakushu_ 396
+
+Dam 224-5
+
+Damp 185, 289, 368, 372
+
+Dancing, see _Bon_ Dances; 130, 237, 305;
+  Western 101
+
+Dandelions 307
+
+Danish _Hojskōle_ 50
+
+Dates 290
+
+Daumier 103
+
+Days,
+  of the Dead, 271;
+  of the week 126;
+  Suitable 126;
+  Worked 377-8;
+
+Dead 201, 219;
+  Belief in return of 272;
+  Days of the 271;
+  Return 190;
+  Tablets of, see _Ihai_;
+  Memorials of, see Hair, Teeth, Portraits
+
+Dealers 195
+
+Death
+  Forbidden 236;
+  Presents at 22;
+  Rate 393;
+  Minors 393
+
+Debates 18
+
+Debt, see Farmers; 66, 126, 195 (2), 265, 287, 302, 322-3, 364, 380, 414;
+  for Food 284
+
+"Decency" 125, 193
+
+Deception of the West 174
+
+Deer 215, 278
+
+Defiled 45;
+  Defilement 256
+
+Deforestation, see Afforestation; 92, 152, 176, 180, 318
+
+Deftness 169
+
+Deified men 204
+
+Deities and the Sea 257
+
+Delacroix 102
+
+_De la liberté du travail_ 8
+
+Delay, Advantage of, xiii
+
+Democracy 38, 51, 99;
+  and religion 2
+
+Demon 215
+
+Demonstrations 88
+
+Demoralised men 26
+
+_Dengaku_ 48
+
+Denmark ix, 46, 368;
+  see Danish
+
+Denudation of hills, see Deforestation, 92
+
+"Depths of the people" 93
+
+Derricks 248
+
+"Despised foreign peasant" 96
+
+Destiny 202
+
+Deuteronomy 375
+
+Development,
+  Economic, 206;
+  Moral 206;
+  National 327;
+  Social 206
+
+"Devil-gon" 56
+
+Diagrams 60
+
+Diaries 18, 23, 231
+
+Diastase 268
+
+Dibbs, Sir G., 9
+
+Diet, see Food
+
+Dietetic reform 350
+
+Difficulties 124-5;
+  "Difficulties polish you" 176
+
+Digestive 268
+
+Dikes, Women's work on, 43
+
+Diligence 151;
+  "Diligent people" 62, 377
+
+Diminishing return 65
+
+Dinner 228, 254
+
+Diplomacy, Farmer and, ix
+
+"Direct action" 173
+
+Discipline 50
+
+Discontent 323
+
+Discussion 358
+
+Disease 210, 350
+
+"Disgraceful disease," see Syphilis
+
+Dishonesty 354
+
+Displacements 268
+
+Distinguished man and demoralised man 26
+
+Dividends, Effect of factory, 369
+
+Divorce 126, 197
+
+_Dō_ 134;
+  _Do_ (land) 334
+
+Doctors   123, 241, 268 (2), 399;
+  "Doctor first, God second," 271
+
+Dogs 131, 221, 236, 344-5;
+  Dog day 126;
+  Fighting 228;
+  for _kuruma_ 248
+
+Doing good secretly 219, 323
+
+Doll in tree 244
+
+Domicile 396
+
+_Domori_ 134
+
+"Do not get angry" 150
+
+Doorway inscription 47
+
+_Dorobo_, see Robber
+
+Dossiers 314
+
+"Double licence" 257
+
+Dover and Calais 334
+
+Dowries 138
+
+Dragon Day 126
+
+Drainage see Irrigation, Water; 97, 133, 199, 232
+
+Drapers' stuff 121
+
+Draughtsmanship 102
+
+"Drawing water into one's own paddy" 48
+
+Draw nets 186
+
+Dreamers 363
+
+Dress, see Clothing; Fields, 187; of Honour, 187
+
+Drill 15, 50, 282
+
+Drinking, see Drunkenness
+
+Drivers' hair cutting 318
+
+Drought 132
+
+Drowning 128
+
+Drum 15, 17, 83, 272
+
+Drunkenness 116, 119, 187, 261, 282, 305, 322;
+  see Saké 2
+
+Dürer 103
+
+Dutch 208;
+  Books 150
+
+Dwarf trees, see Trees dwarfed; 52, 220
+
+Dye 295
+
+
+"Early riser may catch," etc. 57
+
+Early rising 57, 179
+
+Early Rising Societies 14 _et seq_.
+
+Earnestness 168, 277, 308
+
+Earth 126
+
+"Earth is not as," etc. 203
+
+Earthquakes, see Volcanoes 23
+
+East, see also West and East;
+  Wants the best 99;
+  East and West 141;
+  Bridge 101;
+  Inharmony 105;
+  Supposed difference 100;
+  Eastern, Faults of 96;
+  Ideals 96
+
+"Easy minded" 323
+
+Economic conditions and development 149, 206;
+  Economic questions 104;
+  Economic superstition 148;
+  Economy, see Thrift, 19;
+  Economy too small 362
+
+_Edgworthia chrysantha_, see _Mitsumata_
+Education, see Farmers, Genius, Hokkaido,
+  Schools, 17, 26, 98, 120, 127, 140, 169, 194, 196, 204, 252,
+  361, 374, 378;
+  Burden 65;
+  Better 370;
+  Competition for places 195;
+  Ill result of 204, 301, 323;
+  System, repressed by 101;
+  Western 189
+
+Eels 299
+
+Eggs 85, 110, 130, 348-9, 406
+
+Egoist's story 61
+
+Ehime 201, 219, 226
+
+Eights 255
+
+Elder brothers 19, 329
+
+Eldest son 143, 329
+
+El Dorado 88
+
+Electoral offences, see Bribery, Corruption
+
+Electricity 39;
+  Among trees 210;
+  and Fuji 283;
+  Fan 125;
+  Light 211;
+  Torch 300
+
+El Greco 103
+
+Elizabethan scenes 116, 276
+
+Ellis, Dr. Havelock, xiii, 1, 99, 332;
+  Mrs. 253
+
+_Ema_ 326
+
+Embanking 93, 152, 197
+
+Emerson, R.W. 99, 105
+
+Emigration, see Hokkaido (Immigrants); 176, 249, 264, 330, 332 (2),
+  358, 360, 363, 401, 376, 413-4;
+  Number of emigrants 410;
+  No pressing need 363;
+  Why emigrants do not go to mainland and Formosa 363
+
+Emperor, see also Imperial train; 22, 46, 82, 121, 178, 202, 286;
+  Etiquette 44;
+  Portrait 90, 113;
+  Respect for 44;
+  Seeing 43
+
+Empire, To extend the 205
+
+Endurance 261
+
+_Engawa_ 270, 271, 280, 375
+
+England: and Buddhism 100;
+  and Christianity 97;
+  Greatness of 97;
+  and Greek Philosophy 97;
+  and Roman law 97
+
+English (language) 126, 282, 297;
+  Reader (book) 234;
+  Speaking world and Japan xv
+
+"Enlarge people's ideas" 17
+
+"Enlarging mind and heart" 11
+
+Entertainers 108
+
+Epidemics 121, 130, 223
+
+Erotic West 101
+
+Eruption, see Volcano
+
+"Essential out of trifles" 323
+
+Estates, see Hokkaido;
+  Smallness of 213, 400
+
+_Eta_ 221, 223, 248, 307, 400;
+  in America 401;
+  Marriages 400
+
+Ethical evolution 348
+
+Etiquette, see Manners; 6, 19, 35, 39, 124, 148, 200, 213, 242, 273;
+  in roadway 47
+
+Europe 288, 410;
+  Half civilised 141
+
+European 141
+
+_Eurya ochnacea_, 137
+
+Evening primroses, 120
+
+"Even in this good reign," 124
+
+"Even the devil was once," etc., 123
+
+"Even the head of a sardine," 141
+
+Evolution, Ethical, 348
+
+Excel, Desire to, 158
+
+Excreta, see Manure;
+  375, 382, 386
+
+Excursions, 18, 297
+
+Exercise, 151
+
+"Exert yourself to kill harmful insects," 286
+
+Exhibition, see Show;
+  also Bural Life Exhibition;
+  58, 60
+
+Ex-officials, 22;
+  Ex-preacher, 220;
+  Ex-Public Servants' Association, 22
+
+Expansion, 360, 413-4;
+  Suggested abandonment of oversea possessions, 93
+
+Expenditure, see Farmers
+
+Experts, see Agricultural Experts;
+  27, 237, 240
+
+Exports, 414;
+  Some useless, 369
+
+Eyesight, 327
+
+
+Faces, Good will do, 26
+
+Factories, see also Tuberculosis, 282;
+  ante-Shaftesbury, 167;
+  Bathing 163;
+  Babies 162-3;
+  Better treatment, more silk, 165;
+  _Bon_, 162;
+  British and American conditions, 406;
+  Child workers, 172;
+  Chimneys, 151;
+  Compounds, 162;
+  164-5, 168 (2);
+  Contracts, 162-3, 165;
+  "Cost of a daughter's food," 162;
+  Dexterity, 169;
+  Diet, see Parliament;
+  Discharged workers, 88;
+  Dividends and effect of, 193, 369;
+  Dormitories, 162, 164 (2)-5, 168 (2), 399, 407;
+  Education and Entertainment, 162, 164 (2)-5, 168;
+  Earnestness 169;
+  Effect of, 162-3, 181, 280, 283;
+  Empress, 164;
+  English parallels, 167-8, 170 (2);
+  Fair treatment of Employees practicable, 168;
+  Flag system, 161, 164;
+  Food, 161-2-3 (2)-4, 168, 399;
+  Foremen, 162-3, 165;
+  Girls, 2, 85, 264;
+  Government, 172-3;
+  Health, 161-2-3-4 (2);
+  Heat, 161;
+  Holidays, 161, 165;
+  Hours (thirteen, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen), 161, 163 (2)-4-5 (3), 167;
+  Illness, 161-2-3-4, 168;
+  Immorality, 163 (2);
+  International Labour Office, 172;
+  _Kemban_, see Recruiters, Köfu, 165;
+  Kuwata, Dr., 172;
+  Labour cheap, 169 (2), 173;
+  Labour docile, 173;
+  Legislation, 165, 171;
+  Married women, 162;
+  Marriages, 163;
+  Morale, 168;
+  Mottoes, 164 (3)-5;
+  Number of workers, 168;
+  Obedience, 169;
+  Parliament, 173 (2);
+  Police 166;
+  Pressure 161;
+  Priests and Missionaries, 162, 165;
+  Proprietors, 163 (2)-4-5, 167-8;
+  Recruiters, 161-2-3, 166;
+  Sleeping, see Dormitories;
+  Suwa, 165;
+  Switzerland, 172;
+  Wages 161-2, 164-5, 167-8;
+  Walpole's History, 167;
+  Washington Conference, 173;
+  Western responsibility, 173;
+  "Worked like soldiers," 164;
+  and daimyo's castle, 176;
+  and farmers, 282; Silk 147, 150, 161;
+  Tea 403;
+  Visits to, 161;
+  Woollen, 354-5-6-7
+
+Failures, A country's, due to, 167
+
+Fairies, 110
+
+Faith, 27, 97, 148;
+  "Faith is the mother," etc., 136
+
+Fame, Worldly, and good repute, 324
+
+Familiarity, 273
+
+Family, 61, 326;
+  Discords, 282;
+  "Excesses," 302;
+  Large, Appreciation of, 302, 331;
+  Size of, see also Limitation of, 66, 331 (2), 377;
+  Number in, 412;
+  System, 285, 328-9, 330
+
+Famines, 118, 124, 197, 237, 413
+
+Fans, 115, 148, 314
+
+Farmers, see also Adjustment, Agriculture, Area per family, Countryman,
+  Debt, Heroic peasant, Labour, Paddy, Peasant Proprietors, Rice,
+  Tenants, Work;
+  Ability, 65;
+  Aged mother, 3;
+  and Adjustment, 71;
+  and Artisan, 189;
+  Attraction of towns, 180;
+  and Copper companies, 92, 227;
+  Egotist 61;
+  and M.P. 92;
+  and reading, 319;
+  and thieving priest, 320;
+  Attitude towards Science, 158;
+  as poets 41;
+  Autobiography, 8;
+  Bondage 331;
+  British, 370;
+  Capital, 42;
+  Character needed, 50;
+  Children clever, 233;
+  Clothing, 186;
+  Condition, 18, 173, 189, 283-4-5, 265, 304, 310 (2), 314, 322, 354,
+  365, 378;
+  Condition improved, 261;
+  Condition of success, 10;
+  Days working, 232 (3);
+  (hand work, heavy spade, long-handled sickle, mattock, sickle, scythe,
+  weeding 385-6;)
+  Debts 42;
+  Expenditure, 62, 381-2;
+  Evicted by Railways, 250;
+  Families 412;
+  for and against Family system 330;
+  Fishermen 210;
+  Foreign sympathy excessive 261;
+  Food 378, 380-1, 389;
+  in sericultural districts 85;
+  Future 303;
+  Holidays, too small,
+  Home, 61; 281; Good humour 186;
+  Hours worked 278;
+  Idealising of 260;
+  Importance of Character, Education and Influences brought to bear on 85;
+  Incomes too low 38;
+  Lowest on which can live 194;
+  of an M.P. and of a Minister of State 9-10;
+  Increased expenditure 88;
+  Intelligence of 186;
+  Knowledge of financial position 186;
+  Laboriousness 298;
+  Lack of cash 251;
+  Large, see Hokkaido;
+  Limitations imposed by area, practice and physical conditions 88,
+  364 _et seq._;
+  Long hours, see Day's working, 167;
+  Metayer system 207;
+  Meeting of skilful 24;
+  Middle 183, 189, 193, 378, 380;
+  Mixed, see Hokkaido;
+  Monument 251;
+  Morality 66;
+  No time to think 149, 179;
+  Not able 196;
+  Not inferior to a townsman 8;
+  Pilgrimages 252;
+  Pluck, industry and need of land 152;
+  Poverty 176, 183, 195;
+  Pressure on 148;
+  Profit, see Hokkaido;
+  Self-contained existence no longer 66;
+  Selling land 10;
+  Shall rent be paid in cash? 301;
+  Small decreasing, large increasing, 89;
+  Social precedence, 369;
+  Spade 362;
+  Stories 24-25;
+  Temporary prosperity 87;
+  Tenants' movement, see Landlords;
+  Thatch for implements, 220;
+  "Toil never ending" 365;
+  Unrepresented in Parliament 285;
+  Why better off 85;
+  Why poor 65;
+  Wives 30;
+  Working days 237;
+  Yosōgi's story 66
+
+Farce 320
+
+Fashions 19
+
+Fasting 327
+
+Fat 142
+
+Father and son 8, 135, 205 (2);
+  Father-in-law 138
+
+Feast, name of, 34
+
+Feeling 210;
+  v. Statistics 1;
+  Logic 29, 37
+
+Feet 317;
+  Wet 312
+
+Fencing and Wrestling, see Wrestling;
+  14, 16, 159, 178, 287
+
+Ferment 323
+
+Fertiliser 42;
+  Fertility 92 (2)
+
+Festivals 50, 114, 235, 261, 287, 377;
+   Sketches at, 192
+
+Feudal ideas 30;
+  Pensions and debt 395;
+  Régime 244
+
+Field (Upland) 372
+
+Figs 289
+
+Filial duties 117, 205 (2)
+
+Filth, see Manure
+
+Fine arts 214
+
+Fine days 245
+
+Fines 285
+
+Fir 213
+
+Fire defenders and Fire extinguishing 22, 120, 123, 222, 281;
+  Flies 136
+
+Fire farming 110, 122, 227, 131
+
+Fire God 267
+
+Fire holes 314
+
+Fires, see also Arson; 59, 93, 125-6,185, 227, 280, 286, 342
+
+Fish 81, 83, 110, 117 (2), 268, 297, 348-9 (2), 379, 380, 389;
+  Ceremonial 46;
+  Daintiest part 228;
+  Eyes 228;
+  Fed 130;
+  Nurseries 224, 251;
+  Soup 228;
+  Supply 346;
+  Waste 308, 386
+
+Fisheries, see also Hokkaido; 43, 414
+
+Fishermen 211, 214, 308;
+  Farmers 210
+
+Fishing 186, 332;
+  Boat 235;
+  Village 327
+
+Flags 130, 136
+
+Flail 78
+
+Flax 272-3, 381 (2), 410
+
+Fleas 109
+
+"Flinging water at a frog's back" 48
+
+Flint and tinder 233
+
+Floods 92, 93, 118, 128, 152, 177, 180, 197, 223 (2), 227, 240, 370
+
+Flowers 123, 127, 147, 272, 289, 290;
+  Arrangement 53, 213, 319
+
+Flute 190
+
+Folklore being made 331
+
+Food, see Farmers, Hokkaido; 34, 71, 196, 228, 261, 312, 324, 346,
+  374 (2), 389, 404;
+  and Clothes 118;
+  Five _sen_ a day 184;
+  Japanese v. foreign 350;
+  Lack of 114;
+  Production 367;
+  Specialities 182;
+  Tea and Rice 81;
+  Rice and Pickle 81;
+  Taken away by guests 284;
+  Unbalanced 350;
+  When travelling 110
+
+Forage 227, 243-4, 367
+
+Forces which govern behaviour 167
+
+Foreign: Apeing Foreign 306, 362;
+  Benevolence 376;
+  Books 196;
+  Emulation of 158;
+  Fashions 121;
+  Influence 97;
+  Ideas overpowering 101;
+  Pride in things foreign 362;
+  Tourist 236;
+  Under control 357
+
+Foreigners 69, 80, 81, 111, 117, 141 (2), 146, 204, 217, 244, 249, 262,
+  269, 345, 352;
+  Cutting them out 369;
+  and idols 205;
+  and Japanese, Closer relations with 95;
+  and Waitresses 101;
+  Hoodwinking 399;
+  Ill-instructed 191;
+  Immorality 56;
+  Sexual curiosity 101;
+  Short-tempered because of Meat-eating 268;
+  Smell of 142
+
+Forests, see Floods; 194, 240, 370, 390, 385, 394, 409
+
+Forestry, see Hokkaido;
+  Association 177
+
+Formalin 60
+
+Formosa, see Taiwan; 96, 214, 249, 390-1, 332, 363 (2)
+
+Fortunate days 126
+
+"Fortune" 138
+
+Forty-seven Ronin 333
+
+Foster mother 311
+
+Foundations of Japan in village ix, 92
+
+Foundlings 376
+
+Fowl day 126
+
+Fox 33, 129, 144, 326;
+  God 120, 266, 325-6 (2)
+
+France 397 (2);
+  and Algeria 256
+
+Franchise 38, 124, 170, 173, 400
+
+Franklin, B., 124
+
+Frankness 146
+
+Frazer, Sir J.G., 243
+
+Freedom, see Hokkaido; 273, 361
+
+_Free Farmer in a Free State, A_, 197, 347-8
+
+Free, Japan very, 100
+
+Frockcoats 82, 259
+
+Frogs 48 (2), 122, 260
+
+Froissart 161
+
+Frontier line 306
+
+Frost 195, 391
+
+Froude, J.A., 103
+
+Frugality 8, 151
+
+Fruit, see Names of; 18, 85, 148, 177, 282, 289, 292, 307, 349, 368,
+  402;
+  Disease 368;
+  Growing 61;
+  Jelly 148;
+  Insects 368;
+  Preparations 182;
+  Unripe 150
+
+_Fu_ xxv
+
+Fuel, see Charcoal, Coal, Wood; 374, 378
+
+Fuji 107, 262, 310;
+  and Electricity 283
+
+Fukushima 107, 119, 175, 189, 199
+
+Funabushi 307
+
+Fundamental power 323
+
+Funerals 22, 66, 270, 302;
+  Forbidden 236;
+  Feast 248
+
+Furniture 382
+
+_Furoshiki_ 280
+
+Fusuma 36
+
+_Futon_ 8, 31, 109, 258, 280, 300
+
+"Future in the morning" 136;
+  Future Life 201
+
+
+_Gaku_ 4, 38-9, 51
+
+Galloway dykes 227
+
+Gambling 21, 197, 280, 287, 310
+
+_Gampi_ 401
+
+Gap between East and West 100
+
+Gardens 135, 210, 213-4, 215, 222, 270, 313;
+  Economic 12;
+  "Garden where virtues, etc." 177
+
+Gas 348;
+  Natural 133, 300, 404;
+  Gasometer and shrine 286
+
+Geisha 2, 19, 57, 96, 102, 114, 212, 252, 254, 257, 362
+
+_Gemmai_ 79
+
+Geniuses, Education of, 58
+
+Genre pictures 313
+
+_Genshitsu_ 259
+
+Gentleness 19
+
+Geology 365
+
+Geomancy 72
+
+German prisoners 307
+
+Germany, see Hokkaido; 300-1, 328, 386, 413
+
+_Geta_ 16, 18, 116, 236, 272, 308, 317, 346, 373
+
+_Getsu-yo-bi_ 126
+
+Gifu 61
+
+Gillie 25
+
+Ginger 410
+
+_Ginseng_ 131, 256
+
+Giotto 103
+
+Girls, see School girls; 13-4, 181, 275, 407;
+  Babies on backs 285;
+  Exploitation 173;
+  in hotels and restaurants 101;
+  Labourers 250, 286, 322, 411;
+  Porters 186;
+  Primitive conditions 216;
+  Sturdiness 302;
+  Wages 315;
+  Gipsies 110
+
+Gladstone 352
+
+Glamour of West 369
+
+Glass, Box for broken, 126
+
+Globe 276
+
+"Glory of the Morning" 121
+
+_Go_ (measure) 119;
+  _Gō_ (chess) 142, 214-5
+
+Goats 264, 321, 347, 406
+
+Godown 185, 376
+
+Gods 21, 80, 82, 202-3-4, 244, 251;
+  of Agriculture 145;
+  calling down 83;
+  Christian view of 83;
+  "God damn all foreigners" 352;
+  of Fire 261;
+  of Happiness 267;
+  of Horses 26;
+  "If one shall give to God" 323;
+  Respect for 45;
+  and Sea 257;
+  "God second" 271;
+  Sirens and guns 237
+
+Gogh, Van, 98
+
+_Gohai_ 134, 144, 185, 318
+
+_Gohan_ 79
+
+Goitre 268
+
+Gold 124, 396;
+  Story 5
+
+_Golden Bough, The_, 192, 331
+
+Goldsmith, Oliver, 146
+
+Gong 272, 310
+
+Gonorrhœa 300
+
+Good:
+  Doing 26;
+  Fellowship 16;
+  Humour 217;
+  "Good people are not sufficiently precautious" 8;
+  Resolutions, Black and red balls for, 19;
+  "Good wives and good mothers" 19;
+  Good Shepherd 127;
+  Goodness, Causes of, 67, 149
+
+Goods, not up to sample, 354
+
+Gosen 132
+
+Gospel 94, 97
+
+Gourds 221
+
+Government,
+  Feeling towards, 63;
+  Granary 86
+
+Governors 21, 39, 84, 152, 179, 198, 200, 202-3, 238, 259, 328, 352,
+  361, 370, 373;
+  Ex- 241
+
+Goya 103
+
+Graduation tax 21
+
+"Grafting, Thinking," 136
+
+Grain 307, 349;
+  and wood crops 309
+
+Granary 86
+
+Grandfather's story 43
+
+Grapes 130, 140, 149, 152, 177, 272, 402;
+  in mustard 228;
+  Grapefruit 238
+
+Grass, see Forage; 381 (3), 409;
+  Land available 368;
+  Hokkaido and Saghalien 368;
+  Bamboo 352
+
+Gratitude 26, 141
+
+Gravel 25
+
+Graves, see Burial grounds; 19, 58, 72, 225, 306;
+  Stones 121, 144, 147, 219, 235, 267;
+  Gravedigger 241;
+  Unpopular persons 241
+
+Great Britain xv, 328, 386
+
+Greece 95-6, 204;
+  Greek Church 362
+
+Green, J.K., 34
+
+"Greenfield Mountain" 244
+
+Grief 201, 273
+
+Ground cypress 221
+
+"Guid moral fowk" 63
+
+Guilds 295, 317
+
+Gumma 146, 309, 321
+
+_Gun_ xxv;
+  _Gunchō_ 51, 56, 118, 150, 175, 219, 328
+
+Guns, sirens and gods, 237
+
+Gutters 286
+
+Gymnastics 113, 222
+
+_Gyokuro_ 294, 403
+
+
+
+_Habakari_ 375
+
+Habits 124
+
+Hachia 248
+
+_Hagi_ 213
+
+Hair 18, 19, 143, 224, 318, 353;
+  Tied up 116
+
+_Hakama_ 16, 356
+
+_Hakumai_ 79
+
+Haldane, Lord, 201
+
+Half-civilised 141;
+  dressed 126
+
+Hall, Sir D., viii, 370
+
+Ham 406
+
+Hamlets xxvi, 15, 16
+
+Hand-claps 45-6, 319;
+  Hands 153
+
+Handicrafts, Japanese and British, 317
+
+_Hantsukimai_ 79
+
+_Haori_ 16, 315, 356
+
+Happiness 109, 261;
+  God of, 267
+
+_Harakiri_, see _Seppuku_, 55
+
+_Hara_ (prairie) 68
+
+Hara, Professor, 413 (2)
+
+Hard work, or better, 64
+
+Hare 278;
+  Day 126
+
+Harmoniums 276
+
+Harp 83
+
+Harvest, see Paddy, 50;
+  Gods and, 83
+
+Hasegawa, Tokaku, 344
+
+_Hashi_ 81
+
+Hata 68;
+  _Hatake_ 68
+
+Hats 74, 76, 83, 129, 198, 284
+
+Hawaii 388
+
+Hawker: beggar 248
+
+Hayashi, Baron, xv
+
+Haze 392
+
+Headhunters 96
+
+Headman, see Blind Headman, 54, 56, 121, 126, 133, 140, 189, 241, 250;
+  and Officials 21;
+  Loochoos 236
+
+Health, see Bureau of Hygiene, Invalids, Physique, Tuberculosis;
+  50, 53, 80, 180, 268, 308, 368, 375, 398, 404
+
+Hearn, Lafcadio, viii, 141, 237, 253, 344
+
+Hearts 25, 27
+
+Heat, 125, 147, 261, 307
+
+"Heathen" 96, 98, 99, 326
+
+Heather 290
+
+Heaven 23, 183;
+  "Heavenly punishment" 298
+
+Hebrew prophets 95
+
+Height 17, 404-5
+
+_Heimin_ 400
+
+Hell 109
+
+Hemp 409
+
+Henley, W.E., 40, 80
+
+Hens, Pensions for, 345
+
+"Here the Emperor beheld," etc. 39
+
+Herring blessed 82
+
+_Hibachi_ 153, 297, 374
+
+"Hided himself" 29
+
+Highways, Ancient, 144
+
+Hills 390;
+  Artificial 210
+
+Hills removed 299
+
+Hindus 203
+
+_Hinoki_ 221, 394
+
+Hiroshima 207, 236, 402
+
+History: Cannot be repeated 363;
+  of England 167;
+  of the "Southern Savage" 208
+
+_Hiye_ 387, 389
+
+Hoes, see Paddy
+
+Hokkaido xxv, 89 (2), 195, 197, 222-3, 249, 332, 363, 390;
+  Agricultural college, 336;
+  American supplies and influence 334(2)-5-6 (2);
+  Apples 337;
+  Ashigawa 338;
+  Ainu 336;
+  Alcohol factory 339;
+  Askov 341;
+  _Basha_ 338, 340;
+  Bear 337;
+  Beer 337;
+  "Best bits" 359;
+  Beauty 361;
+  Brewing 335-6-7;
+  Britons 336;
+  Brothels 360;
+  Buckwheat 338, 341;
+  Budget cut down 359;
+  Buggies 334;
+  Canning 336-7;
+  Cattle 343;
+  Christians 340;
+  Climate 337;
+  Collies 343;
+  Cooperation 339, 341;
+  Countryside 342;
+  Credit 360;
+  Cossack farming 336;
+  Dairymaid 343;
+  Danish songs 341;
+  Development, 335, 358-9, 360, 414;
+  Drainage 338;
+  Dutch 336;
+  Education 359;
+  Elms 336;
+  Farms, Area, 239, 337-8;
+    Mixed, milk, meat, 338, 343, 348;
+    Profits 340, 380-1-2;
+    Official farms 343,
+    Farms, large, 338;
+  "Feed them well" 341;
+  Fisheries 335, 337;
+  Floods 342;
+  Flour mills 336;
+  Food 341;
+  Foreign practice 336;
+  Forestry 337;
+  Forest fires 342;
+  French 336;
+  "Getting on" 360;
+  Germans 336, 341;
+  Grouse 336;
+  Immigrants 337, 339, 340, 341, 359;
+  Grass 341;
+  Hakadate 334;
+  Hay 343;
+  Horses 338, 341;
+  Houses 334;
+  Hunting 335;
+  Huts 341;
+  Imperial household 335-6, 360,
+    Rescript 336;
+  Immigration into island, 360, 414;
+  Industry 337;
+  Influence on Old Japan 334, 361;
+  _Kō_ 341;
+  Kuroda 336;
+    Labour difficulties 337-8,
+    Land scandals 359,
+    Not available 360,
+    System 359;
+  Licensed Quarters, see Brothel;
+  Manitoba 337;
+  Maize 336-7;
+  Milk 338;
+  Millet 338;
+  Mining 337;
+  Moneylenders 340;
+  Money wanted 359;
+  Monkeys 336;
+  Mortgage 340;
+  Nitobe, Dr., 336;
+  Oats 337;
+  Oxen 339;
+  Peat 338;
+  Peppermint 339;
+  Pheasants 336;
+  Pigs 339, 343;
+  Population 335, 360, 414;
+  Potato, see Starch;
+  Prostitutes 360;
+  Railway 341, 360;
+  Religion 340;
+  Residuum 341, 359;
+  Rice 337-8, 341;
+  Rivers 338, 342;
+  Roads 338, 341, 360;
+  Riding 339;
+  Russians 335-6;
+  Rye 337;
+  Saké 340;
+  Salisbury, Lord, 359;
+  Salvation Army 340;
+  Sapporo, 343-4 (2), 337-8, 391;
+  Sato, Dr., 336;
+  Scenery 342;
+  Self-binders 343;
+  _Self-help_ 341;
+  Sheep 343, 347, 352-3-4;
+  Silo 336;
+  Stock-keeping 343, 347;
+  _shōchū_ 340;
+  Shrine 339;
+  Slesvig 341;
+  Snow 341, 347;
+  "Social question" 341;
+  Soldier colony 336;
+  "Sordid" 360;
+  Stallion 340;
+  Starch factory 339;
+  Stimulating and free 361;
+  Streets 334;
+  Sugar-beet factories 336;
+  Taxation 414;
+  Temples 339;
+  Tenants 339;
+  Tolstoy 341;
+  Tomeoka 341;
+  Trees 338, 342;
+  Uchimura 336;
+  Ugliness 342;
+  University 336, 360;
+  Value of land 402;
+  Volcanoes 334, 343, 390;
+  Wagon storage 340;
+  "Whoa" 334;
+  Windows 334;
+  Wolves 337;
+  Wood pulp 337;
+  Yezo 335
+
+Hokke 134
+
+_Hokku_ 107
+
+_Hokora_ 134, 144
+
+Hokusai 344
+
+Holidays 128, 278, 377;
+  Cheap 123, 190;
+  To cattle 256
+
+Holiness, Theoretical and practical, 256
+
+Holland, see Dutch; ix, 121, 368
+
+Hollyhocks 39
+
+Home Office 24, 133, 345;
+  Home training 149
+
+Homma 186, 188, 380
+
+_Hon_ 334
+
+Hondo, see Honshu
+
+Honesty 140, 145, 277
+
+"Honourable first-class passengers" 218
+
+Honours, 187
+
+Honshu 334, 390-1-2, 402
+
+Hoops 221
+
+Hopes for the future 361
+
+Horses, see Hokkaido, Paddy; 61, 111, 139, 187, 189, 194-5, 209,
+  240, 262-3-4, 269, 287, 307, 345 (2), 346, 381 (3) -2 (2), 406;
+  Bronze 212;
+  Day 126;
+  Difficulty of feeding 367;
+  Dressing 318;
+  Fair 175;
+  Feed 244;
+  Fondness for 344;
+  Fly 126;
+  God 267 (2), 304;
+  Holidays for 256;
+  Monuments to 167, 307;
+  Power 385;
+  Shows 268;
+  Slaughtered 406;
+  Shrine 127;
+  Symbol 272, 304;
+  Horseman's hair cutting 318
+
+Hotels, see Inns, 107;
+  Japanese and English 319;
+  "Hotel for people of good intentions" 54
+
+Hot spring 126, 190;
+  Story 233
+
+Houses, see Hokkaido; 66, 153, 207, 214, 261, 314, 322, 378;
+  Beauties of 31, 35;
+  Building 17;
+  Courtesies 34-5;
+  of ill fame, see Brothels;
+  Miserable 176, 190;
+  New forbidden 247;
+  Simplicity 39;
+  Transported 310;
+  Western "taste" 34
+
+"How I became a Christian" 91
+
+Humanity 235;
+  New conception of 94;
+  Humanitarians 206
+
+Humidity, see Climate
+
+Humour 217, 276
+
+Humus 309, 313
+
+Hunger 145
+
+Hunting, see Hokkaido, 278
+
+Husband and Wife 121
+
+Huxley xiv
+
+Hydrangea 53, 122
+
+Hydraulic works 52
+
+Hygiene, see Health
+
+Hyogo 253, 260, 311, 402
+
+Hypocrisy 224, 259
+
+
+_I_ 246, 410
+
+"I am the master of my fate" 41;
+  "I remain Japanese" 141;
+  "I hear the voice of Spring" 165
+
+Ibaraki 189, 199, 309
+
+Idea of a Gap 98;
+  Old ideas 331
+
+Ideographs 68, 301
+
+Idleness, Correction of, 17, 19
+
+"Idols" 142, 205
+
+"If you look at a water fowl" 101;
+  "If you should advise me" 175
+
+_Ihai_ 143, 270, 272;
+  _Ihaido_ 272-3
+
+Illegitimacy 114, 229, 241, 280, 303, 322, 395
+
+Illiteracy 375
+
+Illness 187, 350, 377
+
+Image, see Idols, 142, 205
+
+Imitation, 24
+
+Immorality, see Morality, Women, Primitive conditions;
+  2, 17, 101-2, 114, 126, 132, 139, 149, 193, 190, 191-2, 197,
+  201, 212, 214, 241, 280, 287, 307, 315, 322;
+  Foreigners, 56;
+  and Shrine, 325-6
+
+Imperial Household, see Hokkaido;
+  Garden Party, 319;
+  Rescript 50-1, 90, 137, 204;
+  Poem competition 40;
+  Train 44
+
+Imperturbability 251
+
+Implements 364, 378, 382;
+  Better, 365, 367, 370;
+  Cared for, 220;
+  Primitive, 365
+
+Imports, Doing away with 347;
+  Some useless 369
+
+Impressions xiii, 27
+
+Improvement, Principles of, 370
+
+Inari 129, 325
+
+Incendiarism, see Arson
+
+Incense 119, 141
+
+"Incitement to do well" 140
+
+Income of a Governor, 373;
+  of a Minister of State 373;
+  Small 240
+
+Incomprehensibleness 202
+
+Incongruity 137
+
+Indecency 192, 197
+
+Independence 151, 277, 311
+
+India 388
+
+Indigo 209, 223, 409
+
+Individualism 101-2, 204, 327, 330
+
+Indo-China 388
+
+Indoors 213
+
+Industry (quality) 297, 317
+
+Industry, see Hokkaido, Factories, Sericulture;
+  Alleged economic necessity for Sweating 169;
+  "Industry and Increase of Production" 259;
+  Cheap labour 169 (2), 173;
+  Cotton factories 174;
+  Chinese competition 173;
+  and Commerce v. Agriculture 284, 414;
+  Crash 87;
+  Criticism 369;
+  Destruction of Craftsmanship 317;
+  Death rate 393;
+  Deception of West 174;
+  Docile Labour 169, 173;
+  Employers' public spirit 173;
+  Excuses for shortcomings 169;
+  Exploiting 169 (2);
+  El Dorado 369;
+  Female labour 169, 399;
+  Foreign competition 173-4;
+  Handicap of 174;
+  Indefensible attitude 169;
+  Inexperienced labour 174;
+  Inhumanity 174;
+  Just claim 174;
+  Mistakes imitating West 170;
+  Net return to Japan 169;
+  Number of workers 168;
+  Profits 174;
+  Rural v. Urban 369;
+  Success of 169;
+  Uselessness of some 369;
+  Unskilled labour 174;
+  Welfare work 174;
+  Wellwishers' fears 169;
+  Western lessons 174, 369;
+  Wisdom, Will it be displayed? 174;
+  Woollen, 354-5-6-7
+
+Infanticide 66, 216, 302, 332
+
+Infinity 200
+
+Inflation xxiv, 414
+
+Influence 201, 203, 321, 324;
+  Influential villager 140
+
+Inhalation 117
+
+Inland Sea 207-8, 235
+
+Inner colonisation, 307, 413-4
+
+Inn 108-9-10, 116, 122-3, 127, 132, 144-5, 152, 190,
+  214, 228, 315;
+  of Cold Spring Water 128;
+  Entertainment 108;
+  Notices in 183;
+  Old days 148;
+  Rates 148, 183;
+  Restfulness 319;
+  Transportation of 182
+
+Inscriptions 47, 126, 129
+
+Insects 20 (2), 188, 230, 250, 286, 344, 353, 368;
+  Fondness for, 344;
+  Insect powder 109
+
+Instinct 201
+
+Instructions 26, 151
+
+Insurance 281
+
+Intellectuals 103, 203
+
+Intelligence 140, 151, 370
+
+Intercourse 358
+
+Interest, see Usury; 43, 66
+
+Intermarriage 204, 252, 290, 364
+
+International Labour Conference 395;
+  Understanding, see West and East
+
+Interpreter 27
+
+Intestines 348, 351
+
+_Introduction to the History of Japan_, 413
+
+Invalids 110, 346
+
+Ireland 358
+
+Iron 226, 396
+
+Irrigation, see Water, Waterwheels, Wells;
+  25, 52, 180, 197, 207, 210, 262, 390-1
+
+Ise Shrine 176
+
+Islands 235 (3), 390;
+  Beacon 247
+
+Italy 365-6, 396-7
+
+Ito San 307
+
+Itsukushima 236
+
+Iwate 189, 195-6
+
+Izumo 251
+
+
+_Jaga-imo_ 249
+
+Jakchū, 344
+
+James, William, 105
+
+Japan, see Japanese;
+  Anti-Ally campaign xi;
+  Belief in, a substitute for religion, 63;
+  Books, good and bad, on viii;
+  and Germany xi;
+  and Great Britain 89, 385, 390;
+  Compared with Asia 390;
+  Could support double the population 97;
+  Course 371;
+  Danger of Foreign colonisation 100;
+  English-speaking world and xv;
+  Free 100;
+  Future, neither a technical nor an economic problem, 371;
+  Forced into Materialism, 100;
+  Great Britain and, xv;
+  Mental attitude 371;
+  New and Old 318;
+  Northern 365, 370, 402, 413 (2), 414;
+  Proper 385, 390;
+  Thousand years ago 82;
+  United States and xv;
+  Width 390;
+  Will o' the wisps 371;
+  World opinion on ix
+
+Japanese: Advantages 371;
+  Aestheticism and farmer ix;
+  Closer relations with foreigners 95;
+  Christian church 197;
+  Common sense 371;
+  Devotional 102;
+  Essence of life 141;
+  Family, a, 143;
+  Ideas, old, 174;
+  Judgment on 371;
+  Kindness 102;
+  Number in Great Britain 403;
+    in London 403;
+  Opportunities 371;
+  Puzzled 100;
+  "Japanese spirit," see _Yamato damashii_, 140, 323;
+  Talents 371;
+  True v. mediocre, 371
+
+Jeffries, 99
+
+_Ji_ 210
+
+"_Jiji_" 90
+
+_Jinrikisha_, see Kurumo; 46, 131
+
+_Jishu_ 119
+
+_Jizō_ 125, 286
+
+John, Augustus 98, 103
+
+Johns Hopkins 349
+
+Johnson, Dr., 132, 175, 262, 297
+
+_Joro_, see Prostitutes; 56, 255, 258
+_Judō_ 50, 159
+
+_Jūjitsu_ 50, 287
+
+"Jump land" 305
+
+Jungle 122
+
+
+Kagawa 207, 209
+
+_Kago_ 244
+
+Kaiserism 90
+
+_Kakemono_ 36, 39, 135, 150 (2), 319
+
+_Kakkō_ 315
+
+Kambara 132
+
+Kamchatka 195
+
+Kanagawa 182, 283, 309, 321
+
+_Karakami_ 36
+
+Karuizawa 143-4
+
+_Kasutera_ 346
+
+_Katsubushi_ 297, 349
+
+Kawasaki, see Labour
+
+"Keeping up position" 183
+
+_Ken_ xxvi, 176
+
+Kennedy, J. Russell, 332
+
+Kepler 106, 123, 344
+
+Khedive 98
+
+_Ki-ai_ 36
+
+_Kikicha_ 294
+
+Kimonos 15, 16, 84, 114, 125 (4), 200, 218, 269, 272,
+  301, 309, 312, 317, 321, 356;
+  Respect for superiors 125
+
+Kinai 71
+
+Kindergarten 7
+
+Kindness 102, 205, 307
+
+King, Professor, vii, 260
+
+_Kiri_ 129
+
+Kissing 313
+
+Kitchens of Hongwanji 63
+
+Kites 260
+
+Kittens, see Cats; 345
+
+Kneeling 17, 308, 319
+
+Knife 282
+
+Knowledge 301, 328
+
+_Kō_, see Hokkaido, _Tanomoshi_; 215, 278, 301
+
+_Ko-aza_ xxvi
+
+Kobe 66, 71, 207, 260, 292, 392;
+  "Kobe beef" 402
+
+Kochi 207, 209, 386
+
+Kōfu 152
+
+_Koi_, see Carp
+
+Koizumi Yakumo 254
+
+Kokusai-Reuter 332
+
+_Komojin_ 208
+
+_Konnyaku_ 48, 176
+
+Korea 99, 103, 104, 256, 332, 336, 363 (2), 390 (2), 391, 394;
+  Folk art 104;
+  Secretary of Government 10
+
+_Korai_ 105
+
+_Kōri_ xxvi
+
+_Koto_ 34
+
+_Kōzo_ 401
+
+Kropotkin 321
+
+_Kuge_ 102-3
+
+_Kumi_ 262, 278
+
+_Kura_, see Godown
+
+Kuriles 391
+
+_Kuruma_ 46, 121 (2), 209, 243, 262, 310;
+  in War time 51;
+  Forbidden 236;
+  Wooden wheels 244;
+  _Kurumaya_ 120, 122-3, 128, 131, 148, 250;
+  Story 310
+
+Kusonoki Masashige 66-7
+
+Kuwata, Dr., 399
+
+Kwanto 107, 147, 199, 309
+
+Kwantung 388, 391
+
+_Kyōgen_ 32
+
+Kyosai, Kawanabe, 344
+
+Kyōto xxvi, 63, 66, 82, 141, 207, 222, 243, 257, 292,
+  303, 307, 391-2;
+  Hongwanji 2
+
+Kyushu xii, 330, 390-1-2, 402
+
+
+Labour, see Factories, Farmers, Land, Paternalism, Revolution;
+  Socialism, 160;
+  Arrests 171;
+  Better directed 64;
+  Ca'-canny 171;
+  Cheap labour exploited 369;
+  Child workers 170, 172, 224;
+  Confederation of Japanese Labour 171;
+  Labour contractors, see Hokkaido, Sericulture;
+  Days in the Year, 62, 65 (2), 377;
+  Employers' public spirit 173;
+  English parallels 167, 170 (2);
+  Factory law 165, 169, 171-2 (2), 224;
+  Hours 62, 376-7, 378;
+    Eleven 173,
+    Twelve 170,
+    Fourteen 171-2;
+  Farmer's Co-operation, see Tenants' movement;
+  "Friend-Love-Society" 171;
+  Girls' labour 224;
+  Imprisonment 170;
+  Increased 26;
+  Irregular 350;
+  Given 17;
+  Kawasaki 173-4;
+  Matsukata 173-4;
+  Mitsubishi 173;
+  Night 48, 171;
+  Police 170-1;
+  Prosecutions 172;
+  Publications 171;
+  Public meetings 170;
+  Public opinion 169, 172-3;
+  Seaman's Union 171;
+  Strikes, 88, 170;
+  Tenants' Movement 173;
+  Trade Unions 169, 170 (2) -1;
+  Wages substituted for apprentice system 315;
+  Women workers, see Silk (Factories) 171-2;
+  _Yu-ai-kai_ 171;
+
+Labourers, see Girl labourers, 150, 184, 189, 194, 380-1,
+  395, 397, 411
+
+Lacquer 39, 130, 319
+
+Ladder for tree pruning 215
+
+Ladybirds 289
+
+Lamb, Henry, 98
+
+Lamps 348
+
+Land available, see Utilised, 97, 180, 233, 368, 408, 414;
+  Covered by buildings, railways, etc., 250, 409;
+  City investments in, 150;
+    under Cultivation 70;
+  Divided up, result, 306;
+  New 18, 24, 42-3, 62, 66, 85, 194, 207 (2), 225 (2), 264, 305, 370;
+  Yearly 408;
+  Government action, 408;
+  Ownership decrease, 411;
+  "of Plenteous ears" 68;
+  Made over to farmers at Restoration 395;
+    from the Sea, 41;
+    held by Tradesmen and other, 412;
+  Utilised, 214, 225, 227, 244;
+  Value of, 64, 133, 240, 339, 402
+
+Landlady and Players 115
+
+Landless 412
+
+Landlords, see also Tenants, Hokkaido, Homma;
+  193, 212, 223, 303, 305, 358, 376, 394;
+  Area 29, 41, 213, 400;
+  Absentees 38;
+  Advice and gifts by 30 (2);
+  Bad 58 (4);
+  Budgets 41, 373;
+  Boycotted 28;
+  Competition for Farmers 186;
+  Circuit of village 36;
+  Cruel 38;
+  Expert engaged 177;
+  Diversions 213;
+  Factory dividends 193;
+  as Farmers, 213;
+  Idle 322;
+    and Farmers' wives 30;
+  Garden parties 30;
+  "Hided himself" 29;
+  "Land master" 37;
+  Parasitic 261;
+  Poets 41;
+  Power going from 36, 330;
+  Rents and Reduction of 29, 37, 85, 220;
+  Sharing system, 45;
+  Storehouses, 28 (2);
+    and Tenants, 23 29, 30, 31, 34, 37-8, 88, 94, 152, 229, 230, 301;
+  Taxes 73;
+  Tenant movement 37-8;
+  Perspiration, 38;
+  Reformation of village, 47;
+  Uchimura 94;
+  Usurers 38;
+  Western and Japanese compared, 261
+
+Landscape 120
+
+Lanes 307
+
+Lang, A., 105
+
+Language 301
+
+Lanterns 19, 36, 58, 136, 190, 211, 237, 266-7
+
+Lark 83
+
+Laughter 217
+
+Law, William, 99
+
+Leaders 26, 51, 140
+
+League of Nations, Japanese Secretary, 336
+
+"Learning Meeting" 58;
+  "Learning right ways," etc., 164
+
+Lectures 150, 176, 180, 189, 250, 279
+
+Leeches, see Paddy, 137
+
+"Left behind his tiredness" 111
+
+Legislation 236
+
+Legumes 349
+
+Lemonade 119
+
+Lending, see Borrowing, _Kō, Tanomoshi_, 125, 183
+
+Leonardo 103
+
+Leprosy 5, 298
+
+_Lespedeza bicolor_ 213
+
+Letter in the temple 26
+
+Letters, interesting, 311;
+  Lettering, Western v. Eastern, 39
+
+_Liberté du travail, De la_, 8
+
+Libraries 23, 59, 60, 180, 190, 196, 215, 244, 248, 401
+
+Licensed Quarters, see Brothels
+
+Life 101;
+  Aim 205;
+  Chaotic 100;
+  Desire to enjoy 179;
+  Significance of 90;
+  Too near to Criticise 331
+
+Lignite 47
+
+Lighthouse, "At foot it is dark," 67
+
+Lighting 120
+
+Lily 410
+
+Lime 148
+
+Lincoln 124, 127
+
+Literature 369; Western 102
+
+"Livestock, his family," 386
+
+Living, Bare, 261;
+  Better 370;
+  Cost of 278;
+  Standard of 65, 85, 310, 240;
+  "What men live by" 27;
+  "Living Power" 322
+
+Lizard story 5
+
+Lobster 318
+
+Locks 183
+
+Locusts 20
+
+Logic v. feeling 29
+
+Loin cloth 125, 307
+
+London 64;
+  Market 357
+
+Lonely spot 127;
+  "Lonelyism" 319
+
+Loochoos 236, 391
+
+Loquat 289
+
+Lorries 621
+
+Loss 201, 203
+
+Lotus 48, 146
+
+Louse 107
+
+Love, Not easy to fall in, 102;
+  Not free 102;
+  Four loves 61
+
+Loyalty 174
+
+L.T. 372
+
+Lubin, David, vii
+
+Lucky days 126
+
+Lugubriousness, Absence of, 273
+
+Lumbering, see Forests; 194-5
+
+Lunacy, see "Natural"
+
+"Lusitania" 202
+
+Luther 94
+
+Luxury 2, 19, 151
+
+Lying 124
+
+
+Macaroni 272, 351, 381
+
+McCaleb, J.M., 364
+
+_Machi_ xxv
+
+Mackintoshes 47
+
+Maeterlinck 99
+
+Magazines 18, 58, 282
+
+Mahomedanism 101
+
+Maid servant 324
+
+Maillol 103
+
+Maize, see Hokkaido, 146, 148, 272, 381 (2)
+
+Malaya 127
+
+Mallets 359
+
+_Manchester Guardian_ 339
+
+Man 150;
+  "Man and Wife" 121;
+  Development 202;
+  with a monument 41;
+  Study of 119;
+  Manfulness 205
+
+Manchuria 21, 354, 356-7, 363 (2), 390, 394;
+  Railway company 357
+
+_Mangoku doshi_ 78
+
+Mantles 74, 76
+
+Manners, see Etiquette 17, 19
+
+Manual labour 50
+
+Mantegna 103
+
+Manure, see _Benjo_; 230, 232-3, 259, 264, 298,
+  308, 313, 346, 352, 374, 380-2, 384, 386;
+  Artificial 49, 85, 92, 136;
+  Better manuring 370;
+  Co-operation 49;
+  Manure blessed 82;
+  House 22, 137, 150, 215;
+  Green 386;
+  Liquid, for Vegetables, 350;
+  "Livestock, his family," 386;
+  Odour 49;
+  Students and 50;
+  Tanks 214-5;
+  "White steam rising" 137
+
+Maples 25, 52
+
+Market, No, 127
+
+Marmots 166
+
+Marriage, see Weddings, Unmarried;
+  11, 114-5, 138, 170, 193, 220, 247, 284, 293,
+  315, 330, 379, 380, 395, 400;
+  Ages 332;
+  Marrying for love, 102;
+  Remarriage 197
+
+"Marrow of Japan, The," xv
+
+Masses 132
+
+Mascots 310
+
+Masters and men, 174, 315
+
+Materialism 2, 27-8, 212, 324
+
+Matisse 103
+
+Mats, see _Tatami_, 177, 215, 270, 304
+
+Matsue 243, 253-4
+
+Matsukata, see Labour
+
+Matsumoto 148, 150, 391
+
+Matter 100
+
+Matthew, St., 94
+
+Mattocks, see Paddies; 97, 285, 385;
+  Wealth and 136
+
+Meadow 409
+
+Meals 34, 323
+
+Meanness punished 266
+
+Meat 130, 133, 346, 348, 349, 350, 356-7, 368, 379, 380, 406;
+  and Good Temper 268
+
+Mechanical power 370, 412
+
+Medals 123
+
+Medicine 248, 268, 374, 379, 380
+
+Meetings, see Public meetings; 63, 238, 254
+
+Meiji, Emperor, 39, 142
+
+Melbourne 167
+
+Melons 146, 150
+
+_Memoirs of the Queen's First Prime Minister_ 170
+
+Memorial stones 41, 51-2, 67, 311;
+  Services 271;
+  Days 50
+
+Mental attitude 254;
+  nimbleness 17
+
+Mercantile Marine 332;
+  Farmer and ix
+
+Mercenary spirit 2, 12
+
+Merciful universe 323;
+  "Mercy of the sun" 321
+
+Meredith 90, 182, 219, 226, 235
+
+Merits 25
+
+Mesopotamia 371
+
+Metal 126;
+  Mines story xi
+
+Metaphysical, Not, 258
+
+Metayer system 45, 207
+
+Methodist 141
+
+Mice and bamboo 108
+
+Middle Ages 84, 317
+
+Middle School boys 151, 255, 284, 404
+
+Middle men 38
+
+Midwives 123, 241, 264, 282, 399
+
+Migration 264, 364
+
+Mikawa 84
+
+Militarism 104, 233, 240, 328, 360;
+  Military service, see Conscription, 220;
+  Training 151, 282, 285
+
+Milk, see Hokkaido; 110, 116, 128, 130, 150 (2), 235, 264,
+  345, 347-349, 381 (2);
+  Foster mother 311
+
+Millet, see Hokkaido 103, 131, 195-6 (2), 213, 219, 227, 264,
+  383, 389, 409, 411
+
+Mimetic skill, 192
+
+Minds, 27, 151, 226
+
+Minerals, see also Hokkaido; 284, 396
+
+Ming 106
+
+Ministers and Ministries of Agriculture 24, 378, 385, 390, 397, 403,
+  411;
+  of Health and Education (British) 371;
+  of Finance 414;
+  of Railways 403;
+  of State, Income of, 373;
+  Ministers, ex- 241
+
+Mirror 178
+
+_Mirin_ 396
+
+Misapprehensions, International, 363
+
+Miser 59
+
+Misfortune 187, 201;
+  and Religion, 63
+
+_Miso_ 6, 81, 123, 151, 191-2, 196, 321, 349 (2), 350
+
+Missionaries 7, 59, 143, 197
+
+Mitsubishi, see Labour
+
+_Mitsumata_ 401
+
+"Mixing in the heart" 135
+
+Miyagi 189, 197
+
+Miyajima 236
+
+Mobilisation 241
+
+_Mochi_ 69, 272
+
+Modesty 317
+
+_Mogusa_ 179
+
+_Momi_ 79
+
+_Mon_ 188
+
+Monday 126
+
+Money: Etiquette 148;
+  Cheap 176, 184, 364;
+  Need of 66, 370;
+  Moneylenders, see Usury, 150, 282, 364;
+  Money-sharing Club, see _Kō, tanomoshi_
+
+Mongolia 357, 363 (2), 394
+
+Monkey, see Hokkaido; 110, 129, 248;
+  Monkey day 126;
+  "Monkey slip" 246
+
+Moon 126 (2), 129, 137, 208, 275;
+  Bowing to 99;
+  "Moon-seeing flowers" 120;
+  Moonlight on mattocks 136;
+  "Waiting for the Moon" 323
+
+Morality, see Crime, Immorality, Police;
+  17, 20, 37, 50, 66, 95, 101-2, 140, 149, 152, 169, 179, 193, 203,
+  206, 229, 313;
+  Anglo-Saxon sense of 95;
+  Moral backbone 96, 141;
+  "Moral bath" 94;
+  Code, Lack of, 362;
+  "Distrust of each other's morality the barrier" xii;
+  Morality dependent on material well-being 118, 149;
+  Quality of Eastern 95;
+  "Not so bad" 149
+
+Morimoto 349
+
+Morioka 195-6
+
+Morley, 14
+
+Mosquitoes 50, 125, 143
+
+"Mother, from the bosom of," 301;
+  Mother-in-law 121, 138
+
+Motor bus 246;
+  Launch 237
+
+Mottoes 7, 39, 126, 135-6, 150, 158, 187, 288
+
+Mounds 306
+
+Mountains 70, 108, 159, 176, 390 (2), 394;
+  "Mountain climbers" 320;
+  Mountain maidens 110
+
+Moxa, see _Mogusa_; 47, 179
+
+M.P., see Franchise; 124, 208, 285;
+  Ashes of 92;
+  and farmers 92
+
+"Mr. Temple" 7, 270
+
+M's, Seven, viii
+
+Mud baths 147
+
+_Mujin_ 278
+
+_Mukae bon_ 272
+
+Mulberry 40, 61, 147, 149, 153, 158-9 (2), 160, 264-5, 282, 287, 298,
+  302, 307, 310;
+  Area and Yield 153, 409;
+  Paper 410;
+  Proverb 153
+
+Mulch 220
+
+_Mura_ xxv, 262
+
+Murdoch, James, Japanese and, viii
+
+Murray, Gilbert, 301
+
+Mushrooms 110
+
+Music 102, 116, 180, 188, 237, 328;
+  Ancient 82;
+  Instruments 222;
+  Western 99 (2), 288
+
+Mutton, see also Sheep; 133, 345, 347
+
+Muzzles 269
+
+Mysticism 99, 100, 267
+
+"My wish is that I may perceive" 106
+
+Naden, Constance, 203
+
+Nagano 140, 146, 153, 262, 272, 399
+
+Nagasaki 391
+
+Nagoya 38, 391, 392
+
+_Naichi_ 334
+
+Naked children 309;
+  Nakedness 115, 125, 193;
+  Child story 307
+
+_Namban_ 208
+
+"Name, called by second," 217
+
+"_Namu Amida_," etc., 129
+
+Napier, Sir W., 170
+
+Napoleon 127, 203
+
+Nara 222
+
+Nasu, Mount 108
+
+Nasu, Professor S., xv, xxiv
+
+Nation 8;
+  National Agricultural Societies 238, 320;
+  Backing Society 312;
+  Defence 97;
+  Feeling 363;
+  Funds 371;
+  Greatness, Sources of, 97;
+  Products 233;
+  Nationalism 204, 328;
+  Nationalists 91
+
+_Natsu mekan_ 238
+
+Nature 287;
+  and Character 99;
+  Feeling towards 99;
+  "Natural" 280;
+  Naturalness 99
+
+Naval Service 311
+
+Navvies 21, 217
+
+Navy 311, 346, 350-1, 360, 403;
+  Farmer and ix
+
+"Needle in your head" 11
+
+Negation 101
+
+Neo-Malthusianism 331-2
+
+Nerves 238, 240
+
+Nets 186
+
+New and modern ideas 37;
+  New ideas 135;
+  New and Old Japan 318;
+  New Age 361;
+  "New rural type" 79
+
+_New East_ xii, 372, 406
+
+News, see Notice boards, 323;
+  Newspapers, see Press, 137, 249, 282, 300, 301, 319
+
+New Testament 96, 203
+
+New Year 265
+
+New York 271, 318
+
+New Zealand 352, 363
+
+_Nichi_ 126
+
+"_Nichi-Nichi_" 90
+
+_Nichi-yo-bi_ 126
+
+Nightingale, Florence, 127
+
+Night-soil, see Manure
+
+Night-time 19
+
+_Nihon no Shinzui_ xv
+
+Niigata 107, 132, 295, 391
+
+Nikko 92, 120
+
+Ninomiya 7, 8, 50, 60, 61, 287
+
+Nirvana 205
+
+Nitobe, Dr., see Hokkaido; xv, 333
+
+Nitrogen 147, 348
+
+_Nō_ 32, 320
+
+Nogi, General, 54, 98
+
+Non-material feeling 259
+
+Normal school 233
+
+"Normal yield" 70
+
+North America 410
+
+North, backwardness of, see Japan, Northern
+
+North of Japan, see Japan, Northern
+
+Noses 144, 192, 204
+
+Note-books 18
+
+"Nothing which concerns a countryman," etc., 107
+
+Notice boards for news 17, 126;
+  Notices 287
+
+"Not yet" 288
+
+Novelist 152;
+  Novelists, Russian, 99
+
+_No wa kuni taihon nari_ 92
+
+Nunnery 142;
+  Nuns 140, 142, 143
+
+Nursery pasture 259;
+  Nurseries, see Paddies, Children drowned, 266;
+  Nurses 58, 399;
+  "Nursing-place for children of soldiers" 312
+
+Nutrition poor, see Food
+
+
+Oaks 316
+
+Oars 211
+
+Oats 381 (2)
+
+_Oaza_ xxvi, 221, 263, 302, 304, 305
+
+_Obi_ 15, 25
+
+Obedience 169
+
+Obscenity 192
+
+Oceania 410
+
+Octopus 46, 308
+
+Oculist 239, 300
+
+_Oden_ 48
+
+Offerings 272
+
+Officials 27, 51, 176, 212, 261;
+  Official rewards 213
+
+_Ohyakusho no Fufu_ ix
+
+Oil, see Petroleum;
+  For insects 188
+
+Oiwaké 144
+
+Okayama 207, 402
+
+Okio 344
+
+Okuma, Prince, 390
+
+_Okunitama no Miko no Kami_ 45, 46
+
+Okura, Baron, 357
+
+_Okuri bon_ 272
+
+Old age 17, 19, 22, 43;
+  Old farmer to his son 66;
+  Old man and officials 51;
+  Old men 135, 271;
+  "Old Miss not frequent" 74;
+  Old Japan 391;
+  Old People's Clubhouse 305,
+    Houses 304,
+    Work 227
+
+Old Testament 326
+
+Olives 210
+
+Omelette 110
+
+Omori 93, 182
+
+Onions 381 (2), 410
+
+"Only half a pilgrimage," etc., 257
+
+Open heart 215
+
+Oranges 221, 287, 289 (2), 402
+
+Order 328;
+  "Orders, May give him," etc., 217
+
+_Oriental Economist_ 93;
+  Oriental religion for Orientals 327
+
+Originality, supposed lack of 101
+
+_Oro_ 400
+
+Orphans 185
+
+Osaka ix, xxv, 71, 90, 207, 222, 311, 392
+
+Otake 324
+
+_Otera San_ 7, 270
+
+"Other people" 62, 377
+
+_Otsu Yukimichi_ 46
+
+Out-of-date ideas 348
+
+Owen, Wilfrid, 334
+
+Overloading 345
+
+Over-population, see Population
+
+Overpowering foreign ideas 101
+
+Overseas Colonisation Co. 402
+
+Overwork 114
+
+Oxen, see Cows, Cattle, Hokkaido, Holidays, Paddies; 18, 139, 346;
+  Ox-day 126;
+  Ox-drawn carts 18
+
+Oyashiro current 195
+
+
+Paddies, see Adjustment, Agriculture, Bull, Cow, Horse, Lime,
+  Mattock, Plough, Pony, Rice, Straw, _Ta_, Windmills;
+  20, 66, 68-9, 70-1-2, 132, 264;
+  Adjustment 182;
+  Appearance 146, 298;
+  Area, see Size, 385;
+  Back breaking 75;
+  Beauty 76;
+  Blindness 300;
+  At Christmas 314;
+  Carp 299;
+  Children drowned 75;
+  Clothing 74;
+  Cow 73, 77;
+  Cultivated for centuries 366;
+  Cultivation in sludge 73;
+  Damaged crops 76-7;
+  Discomfort 74;
+  Drying 73, 77;
+  Paddy v. Dry field labour 358;
+  Floods 72, 76;
+  Frost 299;
+  Harrowing 73-4;
+  Harvest 76-7;
+  Hoes 75;
+  Horse 73;
+  _I_ 246;
+  Insects 74-5-6;
+  Italy 68;
+  Labour 70-3 _et seq_., 331, 358, 365;
+  Labour required per _tan_ 232;
+  Leeches 74;
+  Mattock 73, see Mattock;
+  Model 189, 258;
+  Ox 72-3, 77;
+  Ploughing 73, 385;
+  Pony 73, 77;
+  Pulling Fork 74;
+  Rent, see Rent, 23, 73;
+  Reservoirs 72, 210, 299;
+  Scattered 71;
+  Second crop 70, 73;
+  Seed bed 74-5-6, 84;
+  Shape 69, 70-1;
+  Shinto streamers 75;
+  Sickle 77;
+  Size 70, 249, 365-6, 360 (2);
+  Soil 70, 73;
+  Sowing 74-5;
+  Spade 73;
+  in Spring 307;
+  Straw 76;
+  Stubble 73;
+  Temperature raised 76;
+  Transplanting 74-5 (3), 84;
+  Two hundred and tenth day 76;
+  U.S.A. 68;
+  Value 214, 402, 408-9;
+  Wet 76-7;
+  Water, Ammonia, Depth, Warm, 70, 72, 152, 366;
+  Wet Feet 73;
+  Weeding 74-5(2);
+  Wind 76;
+  Women 74;
+  Work of 147
+
+Pagodas 209
+
+Painting 102, 223, 286, 327
+
+Palisades 227
+
+_Pan_ 346
+
+Panic grass, see _Hiye_
+
+Paper 125, 148, 177, 227, 401
+
+Paradise 205 (2)
+
+Parasites 261, 350
+
+Parasol, see Umbrellas
+
+Parents 17, 102, 117, 149
+
+Park 210
+
+Parkes, Sir Henry, 9
+
+Parliament 53;
+  Cost of election 208;
+  Farmers and ix
+
+Parmesan 298
+
+Partiality 14
+
+Party feeling, see Politics, 2
+
+Past and Present 233
+
+Paternalism 174
+
+Patience 153
+
+Patriotism 26, 206, 371;
+  Patriotic Women's Society, 105, 124
+
+Patronage 37
+
+Pattison, Mark, 105
+
+Paul, St., 99
+
+Paulownia 129
+
+Paupers 376
+
+Peace of the world 84;
+  Peaceful mind 205 (2)
+
+Peaches 277, 289, 295, 402
+
+Pears 31, 233, 235, 289, 402
+
+Peas 307, 383, 409
+
+Peasant, of East and West, 141;
+  Heroic 51;
+  Hungry 145;
+  and Lucifer match 233;
+  Monuments to 67;
+  "Peasant Sage of Japan" 7
+
+Peasant Proprietors, see Tenants; 138-9, 184, 189, 261, 264, 284,
+  321, 364, 376, 378-9, 380 (4), 411
+
+Peat, see Hokkaido, 194
+
+Pedlars 315
+
+Peers, School, 55, 102;
+  Qualifications for House of 176
+
+Pencils 272
+
+Pensions 380
+
+Peonies 256
+
+People, Condition of, 262
+
+Peppermint 381, 410
+
+Perfection 283
+
+Perry, Commander, 100, 124
+
+Persimmons x, 13, 45, 61 (2), 152, 289, 320, 402
+
+Persistence 328
+
+Personalities 104
+
+Perspiration 38
+
+Pestalozzi, 220
+
+Peter the Great 124
+
+Petroleum 132
+
+_Phædo_ 203
+
+Pheasants, see Hokkaido, 215
+
+Philanthropy, see Charitable institutions; 41, 376
+
+Philosophy 100, 102, 204, 206
+
+Photographs xvi
+
+Physique 16, 171, 193, 204, 284, 302, 322, 350, 364
+
+Piano 99
+
+Pickles 81, 110, 159, 268, 349
+
+Picture postcards 148
+
+Pigeons 215
+
+Pigs, see Hokkaido; 27, 264, 347, 382 (2), 406
+
+Pilgrims 20, 133, 142, 182, 210-1, 220, 252, 271, 302;
+  and Prostitutes, 257
+
+Pillow 109; slip 109
+
+Pine 215, 248, 299, 316, 318, 394
+
+Pipes 288
+
+Pirates 214
+
+Pistol 56
+
+Pitt 9
+
+"Places of distinction" 187;
+  "Place of the Seven Peaks" 120
+
+Plains 70
+
+Planet 126
+
+Plans 18
+
+Plantain 122, 307
+
+Plasters 267
+
+Plato 96, 358
+
+Players 115, 124-5, 245, 266;
+  Playrooms 260
+
+Ploughing, see Agriculture, Hokkaido, Paddies;
+  Worship of 61, 87, 120
+
+Plums 295, 307, 405
+
+Poe 105
+
+Poel, William, 114
+
+Poet 27, 40, 135;
+  Poems, see Song, _Uta_; 20, 61, 107, 109, 111, 136, 141, 183, 216,
+  288, 324;
+  Poetry 313, 334
+
+Poisonous plants 124
+
+Pole and bucket 207
+
+Police, see Arrests, Cells, Crime, Postponed offences, Prisoners, Theft;
+  20, 43-4, 53-4, 113, 116, 125, 140,
+  150, 235, 280;
+  Influence of 118;
+  Letters for 111;
+  Offences 250;
+  Shirakaba 103;
+  at Theatre 115
+
+Politeness 19, 40, 217, 251, 277, 317
+
+Politics, see Franchise, "Direct Action"; 103, 104, 303;
+  Local 284, 303;
+  Slander 2
+
+Pomegranate 52-3
+
+Ponds, cleaned out free, 219
+
+Pony, see Paddies; 227;
+  at Shrine 116
+
+Poor, see Farmers, Relief; 57, 63, 67, 94, 145, 149, 278, 320, 323;
+  Cannot remain poor 67;
+  Flattery of 94
+
+Poore, Dr., 374
+
+Population, see Birth and Death rates 160, 391;
+  Census 393-4;
+  Compared with Great Britain and U.S.A. 82, 385, 392;
+  Cost of living and postponement of marriage 332 (2);
+  Empire and its parts 391;
+  Percentage Habitable compared with other Countries 392-3;
+  How to support double 97;
+  Increase of 89, 392-3-4;
+  Increase compared with increase of Rice production 389;
+  and Means of Production 332;
+  Decrease of Rural 412;
+    and Rural and Urban compared 412;
+  Sexes 169;
+  per square mile 392;
+  per square kilometre compared with Belgium, England and Wales,
+    Holland, Italy, Germany and France 392;
+  Surplus 332, 360, 369, 413
+
+Porcelain 39, 319
+
+Pork 347, 350
+
+Port Arthur 98;
+  Ports, Open, 256
+
+Porters 186
+
+Porticoes 246
+
+Portraits 38, 120, 143, 198
+
+Portuguese 208, 346
+
+Posterity 19
+
+Post-impressionism 104
+
+Potash 251
+
+Potatoes 191, 194, 249;
+  Irish 383, 409, 411;
+  Sweet 146, 227, 309, 347, 381 (2), 383, 409, 411;
+  Memorials 249
+
+Pottery 99, 148
+
+Poultry 7, 18, 39, 58, 264, 297, 304, 381-2 (2), 406;
+  Pensions for 345
+  "Pouring water on a duck's back" 48
+
+Poverty, see Poor
+
+Power, Fundamental, 323
+
+Prairie 71, 111
+
+Prayer 141, 243-4, 272, 326
+
+Preaching 3, 4, 5, 249, 270, 310, 314-15
+
+Prefecture xxv
+
+Prejudice 146, 363
+
+Pre-nuptial relations, see Immorality
+
+Presents 218, 271 (2), 329
+
+Press, see Newspapers;
+  Brains and circulation of 90;
+  Dread of 41
+
+Prices xxiv, 13;
+  Prices in this book xxiv, 87-8;
+  Rise in Prices 87-8
+
+Priests, see Buddhist priest, Shinto priest; 1, 20, 45, 57,
+  139, 140, 149 (2), 180-1, 197, 212, 220, 247, 331, 412;
+  Dress 25;
+  Priest-craft 93;
+  at Elections 250;
+  Good deeds 324;
+  Ignorance 120;
+  and Illegitimate child 193;
+  Income 42;
+  Influence, Character and Education 41;
+  Silent 189;
+  Speech by 25;
+  Talk with 1, 51, 59;
+  Thieving 320;
+  Thrifty 62;
+  Wandering 315
+
+Priggishness 362
+
+Primitive belief, 323-4 (2)
+
+Prisoners 307
+
+Prize tax 21
+
+Problems 95, 104
+
+Prodigal 60
+
+Production 26, 369, 414
+
+Professors 42
+
+Progress 63, 235, 279;
+  Delayed by lack of money 97;
+  Erroneous conception of 370;
+  by means of horses 339
+
+"Proof not argument" 343
+
+Prospects 119
+
+"Prosperity and welfare" 187
+
+Prostitutes, see Hokkaido, Immorality; 56, 114, 132, 190, 192,
+  212, 222, 235, 243, 257, 325, 330, 376
+
+"Protection for inoffensive people" 97
+
+Protein, vegetable, 348-9
+
+Protestants 362
+
+Prothero, Sir G.W., 9
+
+Proverbs, see Mottoes; 48, 57-8-9, 67, 109, 121, 123, 136, 141,
+  256-7, 307, 315, 343
+
+Pruning 215
+
+P.S.A. 275
+
+Psychology of behaviour 167
+
+Public benefit 374;
+  Energy 371;
+  Funds 371;
+  Good 22, 201-3;
+  Health, see Health, Public;
+  Public man, Farmers' and Author's view, 9-10-11;
+  Meetings 24, 170, 238;
+  "Public Spirit and Public Welfare" 259;
+  Opinion 41, 118, 135, 149, 203;
+  Welfare 125;
+  Work 303
+
+Pumping, see Water-wheels, 64
+
+Pumpkins 272
+
+Punishment 112, 178
+
+Puppies 345
+
+"Purified in heart" 141;
+  Purification 134;
+  Puritans 95;
+  Purity 151
+
+"Push, push, push," 115
+
+
+"Q" 203
+
+Quaker 3, 6, 203
+
+Quarrelling, see also Family discords; 54, 322
+
+Queen Victoria 282
+
+Querns 235
+
+Questions 243, 303;
+  difficulty of, 101;
+  Questioning, lack of power of, 101
+
+Rabbits 179
+
+Race, Factories' effect on, 168-70;
+  Method of gaining knowledge of another 200;
+  Racial feeling 364
+
+"Rael Christians" 63
+
+Rafts 128
+
+Railway 131-2,144,176,182, 208-9, 217, 243, 250, 251, 395
+
+Rain 74, 137, 190, 285, 312, 345, 390-1 (3);
+  Rain making 123, 137-8;
+  Ducked figure 123
+
+Rake's progress 317
+
+Ram 343
+
+Rammer 224
+
+Ranks 251, 254
+
+Rape seed 131, 381 (2), 409
+
+Rapids 128;
+  Rapid work 317
+
+Rats 150, 185;
+  Rat day 126
+
+Ravine 152
+
+Reading 279, 319
+
+Reality 219
+
+"Realm, Wounds of the," 309
+
+Reclaimed land, see Land, new
+
+Recreation and Immorality 149
+
+Red Cross 124, 245
+
+"Red worm" 282
+
+Reed-covered buildings 84
+
+"Reflecting and Examining" 135
+
+Reformers and Bible 95
+
+Reformer "St. Francis" 321
+
+"Regent" 38
+
+Reid, Sir G., 9
+
+Reincarnation 344
+
+Relief, see Kō, Poor, _Tanomoshi_; 189, 241, 258, 264, 311
+
+Religion, see Hokkaido; 27, 63, 108, 120, 135, 140-1, 149, 179, 180,
+  200, 202, 203, 212, 258-9, 261, 302, 310, 323, 326, 327, 331, 362;
+  and Agriculture 231;
+  as Custom 327;
+  "the Depths of the People" 93;
+  Religious idea, the deepest 100;
+  and Morality 259;
+  Naturalness 99;
+  New 212, 219;
+  Primitive 323-4;
+  Protecting Science 82;
+  Reconciliation of 100;
+  Revival 324;
+  and Science 201;
+  Not limited to Sects or Ideas 101;
+  Substitutes for 63;
+  and Taxation 212;
+  Advantage of Variety 327;
+  Western "too high" 259
+
+Remarriage 197
+
+Rembrandt 103, 105
+
+Remoteness 127-8, 249
+
+Rents, see Rice, Paddy; 23, 28-9, 38, 42, 73, 78, 86, 144, 186-7, 301-2
+
+Reprimand, see Admonition, 187
+
+Research work 158
+
+Reservists 123, 133, 215
+
+Residents abroad 410
+
+Resolutions, see Good resolutions
+
+Respect 37, 40, 324
+
+"Responsibility for one's words" 240, 259
+
+"Best after a meal," etc. 315
+
+Restoration 395
+
+Retainer 198
+
+Reunion 313
+
+Reverence 141, 273
+
+"Revolution, Song of," 171
+
+Rewards 213
+
+"_Ri_ away" 58
+
+Rice, see Adjustment, Agriculture, Aqueduct, Barley, Hokkaido,
+  Implements under their different names, Irrigation, Millet,
+  Normal yield, Paddies, _Ta_, Tunnels, Water;
+  123, 127, 264, 268-9, 271, 321, 349, 389;
+  Aeration of soil 20;
+  America 365-6;
+  Areas 132, 182, 193, 382-3 (2), 409;
+  Agriculture based on 343;
+  Air of rice fields 300;
+  Altitude 123;
+  "All members of family smiling" 137;
+  Appearance 146, 298;
+  Adjustment, see Adjustment, story 51;
+  Compared with Barley and Wheat 70, 413;
+  Barley substituted for 80, 85;
+  Beauty of 76;
+  _Beri beri_ 79;
+  Bowl 80-1;
+  Cakes 80;
+  California 365-6;
+  Ceremonies 50, 82;
+  Certificates 185;
+  Climate 197, 391;
+  Collecting 229;
+  Consumption 81, 86, 127, 351, 366, 387;
+  Cooking 351;
+  Crop 68, 70, 193, 209, 364-5, 387-8, 410;
+  Cost of production 383;
+  Cultivation 18, 19, 20;
+  Daimyo's test 79;
+  Dealers 78, 186;
+  Deficit 388;
+  Disease 207, 238;
+  Distance apart 130;
+  Dog's food 345;
+  Drying 77, 120, 207-8;
+  "Ears bend as ripen" 137;
+  more Eaten 85;
+  Emigration and 363;
+  Etiquette, 81;
+  Engineering 52;
+  Everywhere paddies 121;
+  Exports 86, 388;
+  Flavour, see Saigon, Rangoon, California, 366, 382, 389;
+  Flowering 196, 391;
+  Foreign 81;
+  Gemmai 79;
+  "Girl to boil" 351;
+  Goddess 312;
+  Glutinous 69, 382-3;
+  _Gohei_ 185;
+  _Gohan_ 79;
+  Government action 48, 86, 390;
+  Granary, see Government action;
+  _Hakumai_ 79;
+  Hand mills 78;
+  "Hanging ears" 76;
+  _Hantsukimai_ 79;
+  Harvest 76, 77, 86, 386;
+  Heavy cropping power 70;
+  Heroic peasants 51;
+  Husking 77, 382-3;
+  Imports 86, 136, 351, 388;
+  Indigestion 81;
+  Insects 74, 201, 250;
+  Italy 365-6;
+  Japanese v. foreign production 366;
+  Kew plants 70;
+  Day's labour to produce 1 _chō_ 385;
+  Land available 368;
+  "Last straw" 77;
+  League for Preventing Sales at a Sacrifice 384;
+  Licences 185;
+  Locusts 20;
+  _Mangoku Doshi_ 78;
+  Manure, see Manure, 20;
+  Market 186;
+  Mat for workers 125;
+  _Momi_ 79;
+  Names, see Varieties, 79, 387;
+  and Oatmeal 81-2;
+  Ordinary 382-3;
+  "Paddy" 69;
+  Opening a new Paddy 24;
+  Phial of old 40;
+  Polishing 78-9 (2), 186;
+  Porters 186;
+  Prefectures where most is grown 68;
+  Prices 85 (2) -6 (2) -7, 351, 383-4, 389, 390;
+  Profitable 358;
+  Production 351, and population increased 84;
+  Prizes at shows 9;
+  Qualities, see Varieties, 185;
+  Rangoon 388;
+  Red 56;
+  Rent rice, Inferiority of, see Rent, 23;
+  Reservoirs 210;
+  Respect for 185;
+  Right crop for Japan? 413;
+  Riots 87;
+  Rotting 76;
+  Saigon 366, 388;
+  Salt water, Testing with, 30;
+  School fees 239;
+  Seasons 69;
+  Seed 177, 208, 387;
+  at Shrine 116 (2), 118;
+  Soaking pond 74;
+  Soft for Invalids 81;
+  Song 83;
+  Sowing 386, Direct 387;
+  State 84;
+  Statistics, see Appendix, 84, 86;
+  Storehouses 48, 86, 185;
+  at Table 80, 91;
+  Tastiness 81;
+  for Temple 220;
+  Terraces 149;
+  Texas 365-6;
+  Threshing 77-8, 241;
+  Tickets 185;
+  Transplanting 20, 386-7;
+  Tub 81;
+  Two hundred and tenth day 76;
+  Uncleaned 382-3;
+  Unpolished 78;
+  Upland 69 (2), 73, 383;
+  U.S. area and crop 366;
+  Varieties, see Qualities, 69, 132;
+  Weeding 20, 75;
+  Weight of Bale 302;
+  Wet 76, 77;
+  Rice v. Wheat 351;
+  Wind 20, 76, 219, 220, 259;
+  Winnowing 78, 207;
+  Yahagi, Dr., 366;
+  Yields 69, 175, 382-3;
+    Compared with Increase of Population 389
+
+"Rich are not so rich" 127;
+  "Rich cannot remain rich" 67;
+  Riches 58;
+  "Richer after the fire" 59
+
+Richo 106
+
+Rickets 268
+
+Riding, see Hokkaido; 194
+
+Rifles 151, 282
+
+_Rin_ 191, 211, 271
+
+Ring 128
+
+Riots 87
+
+Rise in prices, see Prices
+
+Rivers, see Hokkaido; 72, 93, 262, 390;
+  Beds, see Floods, 111
+
+R.L.S. 189
+
+Roads 122, 128, 130, 194, 219, 224, 240, 246, 287;
+  Mending free, 219,
+  for Rates, 245
+
+Robbers 195, 225, 277
+
+Robes 2, 270;
+  of Honour 187
+
+Rodin, 103
+
+_Roka_ 375
+
+Roman Catholics 141, 362;
+  Rome 198
+
+_Ronin_, Forty-seven, 333
+
+_Ron yori shoko_ 343
+
+Roof makers 268;
+  Roofs 153
+
+"Room of Patience" 179
+
+Roosevelt 159
+
+Rope, see Straw, 215;
+  Making 177;
+  Straw (Shinto) 223
+
+Rose 213, 290;
+  Rate of growth 242
+
+Rosebery, Lord, 9
+
+Rotation 309
+
+Rothamsted 370
+
+Route plans 18
+
+Rubbish, Production of, 369
+
+_Ruddigore_ 274
+
+Running about 34
+
+Rural, and urban population compared, 364, 412;
+  "Bondage" 331;
+  Districts' relation to national welfare 369, 370-1;
+  Exodus 284;
+  Life, Most difficult question in Japan, 303;
+  Exhibition 60;
+  Aim of Progress 27;
+  Rake's progress 60;
+  Sociology iv, ix, 85, 192
+
+Rush, see _I_, 410
+
+Russia, see Hokkaido; 194, 328;
+  Cruiser 248;
+  Novelists 99;
+  Prisoners 307;
+  War 85, 187, 286, 311;
+  Writers 327
+
+Rye 381 (2)
+
+
+Sacred boat 257;
+  Grove 146;
+  Sacredness of work 94
+
+Sacrifice 101;
+  for father, husband, children, 102
+
+Sacrilege 134
+
+Saddles 269
+
+Sages 108
+
+Saghalien 290, 336, 390-1
+
+Saigon, see Rice
+
+Sailing craft 208-9;
+  Ships 235
+
+Sailors 211
+
+Sails, Western for Japanese, 208
+
+St. Francis 106, 321-2
+
+Saints 107
+
+Saitama 107, 146, 309, 313
+
+_Sakaki_ 137
+
+Saké, see Drunkenness; 18, 46, 57, 79, 116 (2), 118-9, 136, 180, 184,
+  213, 215, 254-5, 267, 271, 303, 305, 313, 349 (2), 380, 396
+
+Salads dangerous 350
+
+Sale, C.V., xii, 364
+
+Salt 36, 251, 268, 349
+
+Salvation Army, see Hokkaido
+
+Samurai 25, 53, 92, 141, 238, 243, 319, 395;
+  Scholar's kakemono 150
+
+Sanitary Committee 123
+
+Sanitation, Western 375
+
+_Sanka_ 110
+
+Sappy growth 368
+
+Sato, Dr., see Hokkaido; 386
+
+Savages 141
+
+Savings 302;
+  Bank book 126;
+  Collected 230
+
+Saxby 167
+
+Sayings, see Proverbs
+
+Scale 289
+
+Scandinavia 413
+
+Scapegoat 212
+
+Scarecrows 198
+
+Scenery 119, 152;
+  Characteristic 244
+
+Schools, see Children, Teachers, Schoolmasters; 15, 41, 113, 144, 212;
+  Agricultural 50, 375;
+  Influence of 57;
+  Attendance 112, 123, 264;
+  Barefoot drill 64;
+  Boys 38;
+  Boys' badges 221;
+  Buildings 112-3;
+  Care of 112;
+  Children (Heights, weights and physique) 404;
+  Cleaned by children 112;
+  Compulsory attendance 113;
+  Co-operative 30;
+  Counsels 112, 124;
+  Early age of attendance 301;
+  Ethics 361;
+  Farm 127, 177;
+  Fees 239, 264, 314;
+  For girls' 47;
+  Girls' badge 285;
+  Influence of 118;
+  Masters, see Teachers, 20, 57, 61, 118, 140;
+  Maps 127;
+  Military relics 286;
+  Morality 149;
+  Mottoes 112, 124;
+  Order 127;
+  Poor 325;
+  Portraits 124;
+  Pride in 112;
+  Punishments 112, 178;
+  Rainy days 185;
+    in temple 137;
+  Truants 285;
+  Shrines 113;
+  Salutes 286;
+  Spartan conditions 50, 307;
+  Swedish drill 64;
+  Training 169;
+  Tree planting 121;
+  Vacation for helping with crops 127;
+  Winter arrangements 127
+
+Science 369;
+  and Religion 82, 201;
+  and Farmers 158;
+  Scientific truth 206;
+  Scientists 100
+
+Scolding 149
+
+Scotland 290, 358
+
+Scott San no Okusan (Mrs. Scott) v
+
+Screen over streets 209
+
+Sculpture 102
+
+Scythe 196, 367, 385
+
+Sea 108, 332;
+  Beach sleeping 312;
+  Deities and 257;
+  Gains from 207;
+  Weed 43, 128, 349
+
+Seals 25
+
+Seats 124
+
+Secondary Industries 23, 65, 195, 232, 251, 279, 310, 379, 385
+
+Secret Ploughing Society 311
+
+Sects, see under names of; 149, 212
+
+Seeds, Better, 85, 370;
+  "Seed" (silkworm eggs), see Sericulture
+
+Seiho, Takeuchi 344
+
+_Sei-kō U-doku_ 310
+
+_Seishu_ 396
+
+Self affirmation 101;
+  Command 280;
+  Control 16, 151, 157, 193;
+  Denial 101;
+  Discipline 301;
+  Government 236;
+  Realisation 101, 124, 125;
+  Respect 16, 369;
+  Self supporting but underfed 261
+
+_Self Help_, see Hokkaido; 60, 288
+
+_Semi_ 344
+
+Semi-official 276
+
+_Sencha_ 294, 403
+
+Sendai 118, 198, 268
+
+Seniors and juniors 216
+
+_Sensei_ 12, 202, 300
+
+Sentiment 182, 203;
+  Latent 324
+
+_Seppuku_ 54-5, 333
+
+Sericulture, see Factories (Silk), Industry, Silk (below);
+  140, 237, 264-5;
+  Advantage to Farmers 85;
+  Aptitude 153;
+  Beef tea 158;
+  Books for young men 22;
+  Ceremonies 50;
+  Cocoons 87, 150, 160, 404,
+    (Co-operation 22,
+    Killing 22, 159,
+    Production and price 397,
+    Retardation and Stimulation 397,
+    Shape 155,
+    Stores 147,
+    Where most are produced 153;)
+  Co-operation 160;
+  Disease 157-8;
+  Eggs 150, 153-4, 156-7, 160;
+  Feeding 153;
+  Girl Collectors 161;
+  Hatching 154, 397-8;
+  Hard work 153;
+  How sericulture districts are distinguishable 153;
+  Instruction, capacity for, 158;
+  Japan's advantages and disadvantages 397;
+  Licences 157;
+  Losses 155;
+  Mating 155-6;
+  Microscopic examination 157;
+  Moths 155-6-7;
+  Mulberry 157, 397-8;
+  Nagano 161;
+  New thing 158;
+  Prices 157;
+  Purification 158;
+  Pupæ 158;
+  Rearing 154;
+  Risks 157;
+  Season 397;
+  "Seed," see Eggs; Prospects of, 160;
+  Quick profits 149;
+  Silkworms, 22, 89, 158, 278;
+  Science 157-8;
+  Soap 158;
+  Students 158;
+  Temperature 153;
+  Wind holes 397;
+  Yamanashi 161.
+  --Silk 158, 160;
+    Artificial 160;
+    Clothing 346, 356;
+    Consumption 398;
+    Export 398;
+    Government 398;
+    Institutes 150;
+    Japanese export compared with other countries 153, 396;
+    Machinery 159;
+    Prefectures in which grown 146;
+    Production 398;
+    Rise in prices 87;
+    Testing 159;
+    U.S.A. 398;
+    World market 65
+
+Sermons, see Preaching, 58
+
+Servants 280, 374
+
+Service 319;
+  by hosts 31
+
+Sesame 220
+
+Sewing 127
+
+Sex 101, 189, 274, 282
+
+Sexes, see Bath, Bathing; 269, 315;
+  Balance of 169;
+  Curiosity 101;
+  Kept apart 313;
+  Ill-doing little concealed 101;
+  Numbers of 74;
+  Relations of 322;
+  Relations, no liberty in, 102;
+  Sex life and Japanese cults 97
+
+Shakespearean scenes 31, 276
+
+Shanghai 133
+
+Sheep, see Hokkaido; 240, 343, 347, 352-3-4, 406;
+  Bureau 352;
+  Day 126;
+  Milk 347
+
+Shelley 99
+
+_Shi_ xxvi
+
+Shidzuoka 25, 63, 210, 283, 292, 396
+
+Shiga, Professor, 410
+
+Shikoku 207, 358, 379, 390, 391-2, 402
+
+Shimane 222, 243, 253
+
+Shimoneseki 237
+
+_Shin heimin_ 400
+
+Shingon 134, 211, 220, 269
+
+_Shinjū_ 102
+
+Shinshu 2, 3, 134, 197, 222, 240
+
+Shinto 12, 19, 83, 96, 205 (2), 322, 326;
+  Architecture 251;
+  Ceremonies 45, 79, 82, 117, 275;
+  Deities 244;
+  Festival 192, 221;
+  Shintoists 91;
+  Priests 82-3, 113, 118, 134, 194. 258, 266, 271, 302-3;
+  Sects 134;
+  Shelf, value of, 273;
+  Shrines x, 16, 18, 22, 29, 45, 57, 75, 82, 94, 116, 123, 126,
+  130, 144 (2), 147, 186, 205, 220, 244, 251, 259, 263, 264, 266 (3),
+  269, 271, 299, 300:
+    "The centre of the village" 259;
+    Closing of 133-4;
+    Produce at 177;
+    Seed from 59
+
+Shipping, Foreign, 256
+
+Shirakaba 102
+
+Shirakawa 175
+
+Shrine, see Buddhist shrine, Shinto Shrine; 120 (8), 127, 138, 206,
+  211, 219, 236, 237, 245, 256, 324, 326;
+  Advertisement of 287;
+  and gasometer 286;
+  and immorality 257, 307, 325-6;
+  Bowls at, 203;
+  Communal 315;
+  Family 38-40;
+  Mothers before 142, 287, 325
+
+_Shōchū_ 396
+
+Shoes, see Boots, 236, 283-4, 45
+
+_Shogun_ 144, 150, 220, 333, 335
+
+_Shōji_, see Hokkaido for Windows; 36, 248, 257, 277, 286
+
+Shonai 182
+
+Shooting 215
+
+Shopkeepers 189, 213;
+  Diligent 17;
+  With land 267
+
+Shorts, Bathing, 312
+
+Shows, see Rural Life Exhibition; 9, 23, 58, 60, 103, 116, 258
+
+_Shōyū_, see Soy
+
+_Shu_ 334
+
+Shuku 222
+
+Siam 127, 388
+
+Siberia 388, 390, 410
+
+Sick relief 185
+
+Sickles, see Paddies; 196, 227, 363, 385
+
+Sieve 216
+
+"Sight of a good man enough" 24
+
+Signs, Shop, 245
+
+"Silent Trade" 122
+
+Silver 124, 396
+
+Silver Birch Society 102
+
+_Si monumentum_ 31
+
+Simplicity 50, 186;
+  of living 38;
+  in Old Japan 240, 243
+
+Sincerity 20, 21, 124, 181;
+  "On the edge of the mattock" 136
+
+"Sinful man, I am," 26
+
+Singapore 57
+
+Singing 17, 308
+
+Sirens, guns and gods, 237
+
+Sitting 124
+
+Skating 152
+
+Ski-ing 140
+
+Skill 317;
+  "Skill in manufacture" 356
+
+"Slave system" 287;
+  "Slaves of their husbands" 143
+
+Sledge 183;
+  on beach 312
+
+Sleep 25
+
+"Sly" 283
+
+Smallholders' incomes 184;
+  Smallholdings, see Farmer;
+  and country 368;
+  Condition of success 89;
+  in Great Britain 368
+
+Smells, see Manure;
+  "They smell" 142
+
+Smiling 288, 321
+
+Smoking 137, 142, 258, 288
+
+Smollett 80, 144
+
+Snail 107
+
+Snakes 287;
+  Day 126
+
+Snapping turtle 136
+
+Snow, see Hokkaido; 120, 123, 132, 140, 182, 278, 391;
+  Shelters 140, 176, 190
+
+Snowdon 394
+
+Soap 158
+
+Social Conditions 88;
+  Development 206, 365;
+  Ideals 361;
+  Intercourse 374, 378;
+  Obligation exploited 369;
+  Reform and Christianity 362;
+  Question, see Hokkaido, 104;
+  Status, changes in, 62, 376
+
+Socialism 171, 328;
+   League 171
+
+Society 101, 182;
+  Restrictions 102;
+  Societies 214, 312;
+  "For Aiming at being Distinguished" 124;
+  "for Developing Knowledge" 124;
+  "for Knowledge and Virtue" 124;
+  for Rice cultivation by Schoolboys 19;
+  for Visiting other Prefectures 189;
+  of householders 214;
+  of primary school graduates 124;
+  to reward virtue 214;
+  to console old people 214
+
+Sociologist, A joy to 72;
+  Rural 85
+
+Socrates 203
+
+Soda water 130
+_Sō desuka?_ 193
+
+Soil 307;
+  and farmers' character 25;
+  Barren 195;
+  Dark 309;
+  Improvement of 298;
+  Volcanic 309, 313-4
+
+Sojo, Toba 344
+
+Soldiers, see Conscripts; 18, 58, 187;
+  farms 311
+
+"Something that doth linger" 145
+
+Son, see Eldest brother;
+  Eldest, 329;
+  and father 205 (2);
+  Son's death 273;
+  "Son tiller" 37
+
+_Son_, xxvi, _-chō_ 140
+Song 224, 313;
+  of insects 344;
+  of Revolution 171;
+  of rice planters 83;
+  Western 288
+
+Sorrow 273
+
+Sosen 344
+
+Soul 321
+
+Soups 110
+
+South America 176, 249, 352, 410;
+  South Seas 223
+
+Southend 329
+
+_Soy_ 213, 349, 350, 381 (2), 383;
+  Soya bean 146, 295, 409, 411
+
+Spade, see Paddies; 385;
+  Farming 362
+
+Spanish 346;
+  Spaniards 208
+
+Sparrows 107, 199
+
+Speaking 24, 238;
+  Way of, to peasants, 94
+
+Special tribes 221, 241, 248
+Speculation 2;
+  Speculator and shrine 325
+
+Speech, see Author, Lectures, Speaking; 26, 238, 279;
+  Unnecessary 26
+
+Spelling, English, 301
+
+Spiders' big webs 248
+
+Spirea 122
+
+Spirit 50, 61, 67, 100;
+  Spirits 130;
+  Spirit meeting 36;
+  of Japan 323;
+  Spiritual betterment 95;
+  Dryness 27;
+  Spirituality 203, 206, 322-3, 361;
+  Why slackened 100
+
+Spitting pot 58, 183
+
+Spontaneity 99
+
+Spraying 290
+
+Spring 214
+
+Squashes 146, 347
+
+Squid, see Cuttlefish, Octopus; 46, 228
+
+Stage, movable, 115;
+  Women on, 255
+
+Standard of living, see Living standard; 365, 378-9, 380-1-2;
+  and Emigration 363
+
+"Standing on householder's head" 242
+
+"Standing Peasant" 137
+
+Stanhope, Lady Hester, 170
+
+Starr, Dr., 326
+
+State Colonisation 312; Statesmen
+  and Industrialism 369
+
+Statistics, see Appendix; 62, 297;
+  and Feeling 1;
+  Mistakes in 404
+
+Statues 45, 222
+
+Stealing, see Thefts, Crime;
+  Boys, 287
+
+Steel 396
+
+Steps 211
+
+Sterilisation 159, 348
+
+Steward's broom, 135
+
+Still births 114, 393
+
+Stockades 132
+
+Stock-keeping, see Hokkaido, 133
+
+Stomach-ache 350 (2), 351
+
+Stones, cutters, 267;
+  Memorial 133;
+  Pile of 110
+
+Storehouses 48, 86
+
+Storeys 153
+
+Storms 316, 391
+
+Stoves 358
+
+Strachey, J. St. Loe 9
+
+Strategic zone 237
+
+Straw, see Hats, Cloaks, Mantles; 73, 208, 367;
+  Rope 65;
+  Sleeping in 184;
+  Wrappings for trees 215
+
+Stream, Cleaning, 186
+
+Streamers 136
+
+Streets, Narrow, 209, 235
+
+Strindberg 99
+
+Stroking 142
+
+Students 150, 152, 159, 195, 220, 300;
+  Abroad 291, 402;
+  Character 50;
+  Grants to, 403;
+  Guild 50;
+  Holidays 137;
+  Promises to one another 8;
+  Sympathetic attitude 254
+
+Sty 27
+
+Subscriptions 281, 314 (2), 315
+
+Subservience 231
+
+Sugar 46, 210, 349 (2), 354, 409
+
+Suicide 55;
+  for love 102
+
+Sulphate of ammonia 386;
+  Sulphur 109;
+  Sulphuric acid water 177
+
+Summer 390
+
+_Sumo_, see Wrestlers
+
+Sun, 126 (2), 372;
+  God worship 323;
+  Waiting for the, 323;
+  Sunshine 76-7, 304;
+  "and rice may be found," etc., 109;
+  Sunday 126, 159
+
+Sung 105
+
+Superior person 254
+
+Superphosphate 386
+
+Superstition 41, 148 (3), 206, 208, 326
+
+"Surface beautiful" 327
+
+Suspension bridges 126
+
+Suwas 151;
+  Suwa Lake 152
+
+Swallows 94, 223
+
+Swamps 199
+
+Swearing 48
+
+Sweat and be saved 169
+
+Swedenborg 99
+
+Sweeping earth 31, 227;
+  Symbolical 135
+
+Sweethearts 302
+
+Sweets 17, 19, 267, 346, 383;
+  Shop girls 17
+
+Swine, see Pigs
+Swiss 290;
+  Switzerland 368
+
+Swords 36
+
+Symbolism, Foreign, 127
+
+Sympathy 272-3
+
+Synge, J.M., 99, 282
+
+Syphilis, see Gonorrhœa, 126, 211, 326
+
+System 328
+
+_Ta_ 68
+
+_Tabi_ 312, 317
+
+Table, One long, 95
+
+Tablets 314 (3)
+
+Tabu 117, 235-6, 258
+
+Tacitus 357
+
+Tagore 99
+
+_Tai_ 297
+
+Taiko, 66
+
+_Taisho_ 39
+
+Taiwan, see Formosa
+
+Tajima 402
+
+Takamatsu 209
+
+Takaoka, Professor, 381
+Talking foolishly 197;
+  "Talking with my wife" 61;
+  Talk 201
+
+Taming 248
+
+_Tan_, see Agriculture
+
+Tang 105
+
+Tangerines 289
+
+_Tanomoshi_ 62, 182, 185
+
+Taoist 106
+
+_Taro_ 48, 220, 258, 309, 409
+
+Task, Summons from common, 310
+
+_Tatami_, see Mats; 50, 142, 198, 345
+
+Taxation 46, 65, 73, 85, 124, 176, 180, 284, 302, 307,
+  380, 389, 395, 404;
+  Voluntary 21;
+  Freedom from 43;
+    and Religion 212;
+  Largest taxpayer 216
+
+Tea 42, 110, 123, 146, 199, 287, 298, 307, 349, 409;
+  and cake 258;
+  Experiment stations 295;
+  Export 403;
+  Growing and making 292;
+  Prefectures 283, 403;
+  Tea Ceremony, see _Cha-no-yu_;
+  Houses 2, 19, 57, 130 (2), 149, 264, 277,
+  303, 325
+
+Teachers, see Schools, Schoolmasters; 27, 112, 282, 308, 321, 399, 412
+
+Technology xiii, 28
+
+Teeth 143, 321
+
+Teetotalism 255
+
+_Teikoku Nōkai_ 320
+
+Telegraph wire 223
+
+Temper, Better without meat, 268
+
+Temperance, see Teetotalism
+
+Temperature, see Heat; 195, 390-1
+
+Temples, see Buddhist temples, Buddhism; 20, 31, 37, 45, 57-8 (2), 62,
+  149, 183, 196, 206, 210, 220, 263-4, 369;
+  Bell 331;
+  Dues 139, 380;
+  Government attitude, 41;
+  New, 41;
+  Priest's house in 4;
+  Services 3;
+  Schools 137;
+  "Temples, Shrines and English church" 100
+
+Ten years hence, see Time; 100, 324, 357
+
+Tenants, see Agriculture, Hokkaido, Farmers, Landlords;
+  37, 42, 152 (2), 189, 194-5, 213, 223, 258, 261, 263, 265, 283,
+  301-2, 364, 376, 411;
+  as "Labourers" 88, 395;
+  Condition of 207, 304-5, 379, 380 (3)-1;
+  Contract 405;
+  Common interests with landlord 229-30;
+  Eating cattle food 379;
+  Gifts to landlord 31;
+  Movement against landlords, see Tenants' movement (Landlords);
+  Rewarded 33, 187;
+  Sly 28;
+  Transference to Peasant Proprietorship 29-30 (2), 31
+
+Tendai 220
+
+Tenison xiv
+
+Tennis 159
+
+_Tera_ 134
+
+Terauchi 390
+
+Terence 107
+
+Terracing 149, 227
+
+Texas 365-6
+
+Thanks not to be accepted 26
+
+Thatch 153, 281, 286
+
+Theatre 115, 266, 305;
+  and Police 53;
+  Moving 115;
+  Stamp on hands 115
+
+Theft, see Crime; 113, 139, 195, 280 (2)
+
+Theine 292, 403
+
+Theology 362; Natural 141
+
+Thermometer 137
+
+"They feel the mercy of the sun" 321
+
+"Thirteen a perilous age" 130
+
+Thistles 307
+
+Thompson, Francis, 99
+
+"Those who suffer learn," etc., 253
+
+"Thou also dwellest," 106
+
+"Though hands and feet," etc., 324
+
+Thought changes really slow 331
+
+Threshing 208, 367;
+  Machinery, 78
+
+Threshold 242
+
+Thrift 11, 12, 13, 30-1, 48, 50, 60-1, 124, 187
+
+Thunderbolts 131
+
+Thyme 290
+
+Tidal waves 62, 93
+
+Tidiness 19
+
+Tiger-day 126
+
+Tiles 153, 245
+
+Timber 111, 122, 128, 194, 227
+
+Time, see Ten years hence; 252, 292
+
+Tintoretto 103
+
+"Tipped with fire" 27
+
+Tipping 145, 148
+
+Toast 80
+
+Tobacco 177, 267, 349, 379, 380, 400
+
+Tochigi 107, 309
+
+Toes 317
+
+_Tōfu_ 81, 311, 349, 350
+
+_Tokobashira_, see Tree in room
+
+_Tokonoma_ 32, 319
+
+Tokugawa Iyesato, Prince, x;
+  Tokugawa period 8, 285, 363
+
+_Tokushu buraku_ 400
+
+Tokushima 207, 209
+
+Tokyo xxvi, 26, 38, 55, 66, 71-2, 102, 107, 144, 182, 227, 249, 260,
+  286, 289, 292, 299, 309, 313, 318, 322, 331, 334, 349, 387, 391 (2);
+  Population 392;
+  University 145
+
+Tolstoy, see Hokkaido; 25, 27, 94, 200, 321, 327
+
+Tombstones 72
+
+"Too near to criticise" 331;
+  "Too poetical" 254
+
+Tools, see Paddies, Implememts; 174, 222, 301, 317
+
+Top, Movement from, 30, 204
+
+_Torii_ 236, 251, 325
+
+Torrens 170
+
+Tottori 253, 255, 402
+
+Tourist steamers 237
+
+Towels 16, 31, 148, 183, 286, 295
+
+Town life, True character of, 180;
+  Townsman envied 180;
+  Townsman v. Countryman 233
+
+Toyama 132, 138
+
+_Toyo-ashiwara_, etc., 68
+
+_Trachoma_ 183, 405
+
+Trade Unions, see Labour;
+  U.S. and 170;
+  Tradesmen 189;
+  Tradesmen's boys 315
+
+Tradition, Family, 149
+
+Traherne, 99
+
+Training, Home, 149
+
+Tramps 315, 376
+
+_Transactions of Society of Arts_, see Asiatic; 364
+
+Translations 401
+
+Travel, see Trips; 216, 269;
+  Counsel 110;
+  Old time 246;
+  Postgraduate 29
+
+Trees, see Varieties of, under names, 62, 147, 227, 316;
+  Cutting down 13;
+  Dwarfed 52;
+  Homesteads studded 146, 307;
+  in the house 319;
+  Moving 210;
+  Mushrooms 110;
+  Planting, see Afforestation, 45, 67, 121, 240;
+  in Room 319;
+  Symbolical 12, 121;
+  Pictures 215;
+  Trimmed 77;
+  in Winter 215
+
+"Tremble and correct their conduct" 113
+
+Trips 18
+
+Troubler of Israel 90
+
+Trousers 111, 269, 310, 312
+
+Truth 161
+
+Tsingtao 58
+
+Tsushima 248, 335
+
+Tuberculosis 398, 406
+
+Tunnels 52, 132, 149, 152, 176, 190, 197
+
+Tumours 268
+
+Turnips 410
+
+Twelve hours' day, U.S. and, 170
+
+Types (Racial) 204
+
+Typhoons 93
+
+Tytler 207
+
+Uchimura, Kanz=o, see also Hokkaido; 90-7, 99, 101, 141, 326-7, 362
+
+Ueda Sericulture College 158-9
+
+Umbrellas 198, 250, 285
+
+Unclean 208
+
+Undercooking 350
+
+Underfeeding 350
+
+Understanding, see West and East
+
+Uninhabitable, see also Area habitable; 394;
+  compared with Great Britain 394
+
+United States 328, 388;
+  and British Interests in Far East xv;
+  and Japan xv;
+  Government xiv;
+  and twelve hours' day 170;
+  Steel Corporation 170
+
+Universe 7, 321
+
+Universities 300, 403
+
+Unmarried 393
+
+Unworldliness 28
+Upland, see also Rice; 372;
+  _Hata_ 68;
+  Area 385;
+  Area ploughed by cattle 385;
+  Profit of 194;
+  Value of 402
+
+Upper class reformers 30
+
+Usury 38, 56, 176, 184, 185
+
+_Uta_ 324
+
+Utilisation of waste, see Waste; 48
+
+
+Vacation, see Schools
+
+_Valerius_ 45
+
+Valleys 372
+
+Van Eyck 103
+
+Van Gogh 103
+
+Vaughan 99
+
+Veal 349
+
+Vegetable protein 348-9
+
+Vegetables 18, 85, 307, 349 (2), 389;
+  at Shrine 16, 83;
+  Salted 196
+
+Vegetarianism 57, 59, 130, 147, 270, 321, 348
+
+Venus 214
+
+Vetch 263
+
+Veterinary surgeon 268
+
+Views 119
+
+Village activities 250;
+  Association for promoting morality 20;
+  Callings 189;
+  Cleaning stream 186;
+  Conditions 322;
+  Discords 305;
+  Founders 265;
+  Funds 124, 279;
+  Histories 57;
+  Ideal 104;
+  Improvement of 28;
+  Library 59;
+  Mobilisation 241;
+  Meetings 20, 278;
+  Model 259, 380;
+  Number of Houses in 262;
+  Office 314;
+  Praised and rewarded 41;
+  Reformed 47;
+  Return to 88;
+  Revenue 124;
+  Signs of being well off 263-4;
+  Signs of good 259;
+  Tax free 21;
+  Troubles 278;
+  Unified by removal of graves 72;
+  Wanted one good personality in 259;
+  Villagers, not educated enough to understand, 26, 341;
+    Savings 230;
+    Taxes in work 245;
+  Worthy 22
+
+Village Agricultural Association 22-3, 30, 215, 250, 303, 380
+
+Village assembly 123, 133, 215
+Villages, see Famine, Revenue, Sanitary Committee, Societies, Taxation;
+  xxvi, 16, 18, 43, 134
+
+Vine branches 209
+
+Virtue, see Morality; 140;
+  Supreme 120;
+  Taught by hands 50
+
+Vladivostok 214
+
+Voelcker, Dr., 370
+
+"Voice of one," etc., 136
+Volcanic ash 70;
+  Eruption grants 312;
+  Soil 309, 313
+
+Volcanoes, see Earthquakes, Hokkaido; 108, 131, 143, 316, 390, 394
+
+Voters, see Franchise; 124, 400
+
+Votive pillars 211;
+  clock 252
+
+Vow 255
+
+Vulgar words 18
+
+Waist string 307
+
+Waitresses 212, 315, 322, 376;
+  and Foreigners 101
+
+Waley, A., 320
+
+"Walking out" 313, 315
+
+Wall builders 267;
+  Wall charts 124
+
+Wallace, Robert, viii
+
+Wallas, Graham, 86
+
+War 203, 311, 354, 414;
+  and this book xxv, 87-8;
+  Bonds 187;
+  China 85;
+  Counsels 187;
+  Great War x, 206;
+  Russia, see Russia, 21, 85, 91
+
+_Waraji_ 15, 129, 209, 272, 279, 326
+
+Washing 45, 317, 354;
+  Washouts 182
+
+Waste 70, 324, 385;
+  of time xi;
+  Planting of, see Afforestation;
+  Utilisation of 48, 178
+
+Wastrels, see Hokkaido
+
+_Watakushi_ 301
+
+Watchword 259
+
+Water 64, 126, 132-3, 262, 298-9, 390;
+  Colours 286;
+  Dangerous 108, 350;
+  "Water drinker" 258;
+  Hot piped 248;
+  Pollution 350;
+  On roof 177;
+  Wheels 216, 263;
+  Splashing quarrels 48;
+  Works 52
+
+Wax and trees 219, 400, 410
+
+Weather, see Climate; 86, 136, 391
+
+Weddings, see Marriages; 66, 265, 302, 332, 379;
+  Tax 21
+
+Weeds, see Paddies; 228, 263, 307, 314, 366, 385;
+  "Weeding in happiness" 137
+
+Week 126
+
+"Weep not," etc., 224;
+  Weeping 25
+
+Weights 350, 404;
+  Lifting 16;
+  and Measures xxv
+
+Welcome tea 148
+
+Well off 204, 264 (2), 370
+
+Wells 27, 207
+
+Wells, H.G., viii
+
+West and East, Elemental things 6;
+  Glamour 369;
+  Importance of problem vii;
+  Real barrier xii
+Western art 102;
+  Costumes 101;
+  Dancing 101;
+  Civilisation 186;
+  Eroticism 101;
+  Ideas 201;
+  Influence 174, 330, 369;
+  Literature 102;
+  Music 102;
+  Painting 102;
+  Philosophy 102;
+  Sculpture 102;
+  Thought 55
+
+Wet, see Climate
+
+"What a happy life" 183
+
+Wheat 307, 351 (2), 381 (2), 391, 409-10;
+  Compared with Rice 351, 383;
+  Imports 383
+
+Whitman, Walt, 99 (2), 105
+
+"Why do you wear," etc., 288;
+  "Why fasten your horse," etc., 288
+
+Widows 111, 197
+
+Wild people 110
+
+_Wilkstroemia Sikokiana_, see Gampi
+
+Will 19, 314
+
+Windbreaks 248;
+  Mills 152, 251;
+  and Taxes 259
+
+Windows 358
+
+Winnowing 215, 220
+
+Winter 278, 282, 390, 413;
+  Crop 384-5-6
+
+Wisdom or Riches 61
+
+Wit 191
+
+Wives, see Marriage, Wedding; 143;
+  "Please teach her" 6
+
+Women, see Farmers' wives, Nurses, Paddies, Porters, Teachers, Wives;
+  34, 205, 212;
+  Barbers 224;
+  British Exploitation of 170;
+  Carriage of 268;
+  Children on back 97;
+  Women's Chivalrous Society 312;
+  Clothing 125;
+  Cooking 136;
+  Crime against 114, 229;
+  on dam and dyke 43, 224;
+  Diseases 268;
+  Exploitation of 173;
+  Fisher women 235;
+  Individualism 102;
+  Influence of Christianity 94 (2), 95;
+  Kindness 31;
+  Labourers 323;
+  Women's Movement 290;
+  and Men 102, 169, 290;
+  New openings for 255;
+  Number of Workers 168-9, 399;
+  One Heart Society 312;
+  Overworked 114;
+  Press 181;
+  Praying 243;
+  and Priest 4;
+  Priest 120;
+  Primitive conditions 216, 247;
+  Obstacles to Agricultural progress 232;
+  Public life 300;
+  Same implements as husband 97;
+  Savings not used by men 126;
+  Story of old woman 323;
+  Religious Association 58;
+  Self-suppression 290;
+  Strength 269;
+  Suffering 181, 290;
+  Trousers, see Trousers, 111;
+  compared with Western 290;
+  Western costumes 101;
+  Wives, see Wives, 293;
+  Work 278
+
+Wood 110, 126, 196, 372;
+  Cutters 267;
+  Divided up, Result, 306;
+  and Grain crops 309;
+  Preservation 227;
+  Quantity needed 111;
+  Utensils 121;
+  Wealth of 122;
+  Workers 121;
+  White (Shinto) 46, 83
+
+Wool 133, 346, 352-3-4-5-6-7;
+  v. Cotton and Silk 356;
+  Woollen factories compared with English 354-7;
+  Industry 354-5-6-7, 407
+
+Woolman, John, vi
+
+Work, for common good 19;
+  to Gain influence 321;
+  Good 317;
+  Hard 125, 284;
+  "Make the young fellows" 259;
+  Sacredness of 94;
+  Workers 218, City 87-8;
+  Workmen good 317
+
+World, Attitude, 371;
+  Better world 90, 202
+
+Worship 141, 244, 271, 324, 326
+
+"Would that my daughter," etc. 183
+
+"Wounds of the realm" 309
+
+Wren 31
+
+Wrens 287
+
+Wrestlers 16, 28, 108, 179, 196, 249, 276, 316, 404
+
+Wrist development 16
+
+Writing 17, 288, 311;
+  "Penmanship is like," etc., 288
+
+
+Yahagi, Dr., 366
+
+Yam 258
+
+Yamagata 175, 176, 182, 189, 193, 302, 380
+
+Yamaguchi 235, 237
+
+Yamanashi 146
+
+Yamasaki, N., 11, 17, 25, 37, 47, 51, 54, 63, 375
+
+_Yamato damashii_ ix, 140
+
+Yamato Society 413
+
+Yanagi, M., 98-106, 326-7;
+  Mrs. 99
+
+Yangtse 390
+
+_Yashiki_ (mansion) 369
+
+_Yashiro_ 134
+
+Yeats, W.B., 99
+
+Yeddo, see Tokyo, Yezo; 144, 335
+
+Yields, see Agriculture, Crops and names of
+
+Y.M.A. 7, 15 _et seq._, 22, 23, 28, 46, 120 (2), 124, 126, 128,
+  178, 194, 197, 212, 215, 223, 239, 265, 286;
+  Criticism of 259, 277 (2), 282, 303;
+  Official action 240;
+  Y.M.C.A. 15;
+  Y.W.A. 19;
+  Y.W.C.A. 15
+
+_Yo_ 126
+
+_Yofuku_, see Foreign clothes
+
+Yokohama 182, 392
+
+Yokoi, Dr., 362
+
+_Yoroshii_ 280
+
+Yoshida, S., 332
+
+Yosōgi 66
+
+Young, Arthur, ix
+
+Young men 135, 181;
+  and Women, see Sexes, 313;
+  with a mission 324
+
+_Yukata_ 108, 356
+
+
+_Zabuton_ 34, 143, 246, 258
+
+Zeeland 197
+
+_Zen_ 11, 100, 130, 134, 144, 186, 193, 245, 313
+
+Zig-zag tracks 140
+
+_Zori_ 65, 236
+
+Zorn 327
+
+
+[Compiler's Notes
+
+The following typographical errors or inconsistencies were corrected:
+Page xv (Introduction), 315: The name Kanzō Uchimura did not have a
+macron over the o, but it did in the index and two other locations
+in the text, and it was confirmed from another source, so the macrons
+were edited in.
+Page xv (Introduction): The term 'kōri' (division of a prefecture)
+did not have the macron, but it did in the index; also confirmed
+from another source, so put the macron character in.
+In four places, the term 'gunchō' (head of a county) did not
+have a macron over the o, but in five other places, it did,
+so I have edited the word on pages 51, 52, and 56, and in the index.
+Page 55: Changed 'familar' to 'familiar'.
+Page 125: The term 'jizō' did not have a macron over the o,
+but it did in another location and in the index, so I edited it.
+Page 226: Changed 'instal' to 'install'.
+Page 315: The term 'kakkō' (cuckoo) did not have a macron over the o,
+but it did in the index, and I determined from another
+source that it should have the macron, so I edited it.
+Index: various hyphenated words did not have hyphens in the index
+entries, edited in the hyphens.
+Index: Entry for 'Cimabue' should not have accented e (confirmed
+from another source) so corrected it.
+Index: Entry for 'furoshiki' had two i's at the end; confirmed with
+another source it should only have one i at the end; corrected.
+Index: Entry for 'genshitsu' was mis-spelled, confirmed from another
+source, corrected.
+Index: Entry for phrase 'Getsu-yo-bi' was mis-spelled, obvious from
+the text in the book, so corrected.
+Index: phrase 'Okunitama-no-miko-no-kami mis-spelled, corrected.'
+Index: entry for phrase 'Sei-kō U-doku' did not have a macron but in
+the book it did, so edited the index entry.
+Index: entry for phrase 'Tokushu buraku' was mis-spelled, confirmed
+from another source, corrected.
+Index: entry for word 'yofuku' had macron over the o here, but not
+anywhere in the book, so it was made consistent by using a normal o.
+Index: The name 'Yosōgi' had the macron over the first o instead of
+the second one, inconsistent with the other index listing and the
+chapter text, so the index entry was corrected. The Chapter title
+does not use a macron at all, and has been left as printed.
+Index: Entry for 'Yukata' should not have a macron on the u - verified
+this from another source, made correction.]
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Foundations of Japan, by J.W. Robertson Scott
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN ***
+
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